Summary answering: Is Faulkner as Difficult as His Characters?

Many people would argue that William Faulkner writes about complex characters. No matter what story it is, he creates characters that say so much, but actually might say too little. Critics are always critiquing his writing style for his characters because they’re mysterious and confusing. His novel As I Lay Dying shows his true writing skills for the people he writes about.

This critiqued article exemplifies how challenging Faulkner’s characters get. His unique characters like Addie show the key woman in the story and what he does to portray them. The whole novel is centered on Addie, but yet we only hear her talk for a chapter. She plays an important role, but comes off as irrelevant sometimes. Faulkner rarely lets Addie speak for herself. We get a sense of her by the way she describes Anse and her children, but everything else is up for grabs. We question if she really was the glue to the family and what place she actually had. Critics want to agree with what Addie has to say, but the language of the rest of the novel makes it hard for them to do so. This seems to be ironic because in the novel Addie mentions, “I learned that words are no good” (Faulkner 99). Maybe that’s Faulkner giving us clues that we can’t believe everything written down. Characters are more complex than what we think. Darl is an example of that. There is so much more to him that our questions can’t all be answered. Critics and readers want to know what was going on with Darl. Maybe he was crazy or maybe he’s just simply misunderstood. He makes “intangible concepts visible”. We never know what’s up with him and we probably never will and we have to figure out why Faulkner wants that.

Throughout his novels, he brings us different elements and languages. We get a more poetic language when Darl or Vardaman is speaking but because they are more mysterious characters, it ties in the Southern Gothic aspect of Faulkner’s writing. These characters explore their language by operating different metaphors and images throughout the book like “my mother is a fish” (Faulkner 49). These two characters are extremely difficult because they have a purpose but it sometimes doesn’t meet the correct language Faulkner is trying to portray. We experience the past and the present, which gets confusing because it seems like the characters can’t even keep track. One explanation might be said in one chapter, but it could be told way different in another.

Faulkner represents a complex view on himself. Only he can come up with such difficult characters that help a whole novel make complete sense like the ones in As I Lay Dying. They make complete sense even though we are always questioning what is going on. Faulkner must be a writing genius or simply tricking us in believing so.

Work Cited

Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. 1st ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print.

Olsen, Kathryn. “Raveling Out Like a Looping String: As I Lay Dying and Regenerative Language.” Journal of Modern Literature. Web. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_modern_literature/v033/33.4.olsen.html DOI: 10.2979/JML.2010.33.4.95>.