As I Lay Dying (novel)

As I Lay Dying is a novel by William Faulkner, and arguably among the least Mind Screw-like and most comprehensible of his works, and thus a good starting point.

The basic plotline: Addie Bundren, the matriarch of the Bundren family, has died and expressed a wish to be buried in her hometown, Jefferson. Her husband Anse and children Cash, Darl, Jewel, Dewey Dell and Vardaman comply -- although in many characters' cases, for not-entirely-altruistic reasons -- pack up the corpse and go. This being a Faulkner novel, of course, things go wrong. Very wrong.

As I Lay Dying contains examples of:
""[Jewel] is my cross and he will be my salvation. He will save me from the water and from the fire. Even though I have laid down my life, he will save me.""
 * Anti-Hero: Jewel. Despite being a complete bastard, he's arguably the only one of the Bundrens with completely good intentions. And, arguably, the one who cares the most about Addie.
 * Beige Prose: "My mother is a fish." This also applies to Cash's sections before he replaces Darl as the objective narrator.
 * Back-Alley Doctor: Skeet MacGowan, but blatantly without the "doctor" part.
 * Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie: The entire plot.
 * Catch Phrase: Among others:
 * Cash: "It don't bother me none"
 * Jewel: "Goddamn you" and "Shut up, Darl!"
 * Darl: "Jewel's mother is a horse"
 * Vardaman: "My mother is a fish"
 * Kate: "She oughta take them cakes"
 * Crapsack World: It's Faulkner, what do you expect?
 * Downer Ending: Oh Anse, you Jerkass, you.
 * Due to the Dead: The whole plot, but subverted in that most of the characters are just using it as an excuse.
 * Dysfunctional Family: All Anse cares about is getting new teeth, most people think Darl is weird because he's clairvoyant, Jewel is angry about everything, and Vardaman thinks his mother is a fish. Dewey Dell is slightly less dysfunctional than the aforementioned, though she does have a slightly incomprehensible dream where she couldn't feel anything, even the fact that she was a woman, except for the cool wind blowing across her naked body. All things considered, Cash seems rather normal, though he obsessed over creating the coffin.
 * Gender Blender Name: Jewel is male, not female.
 * A Good Name for a Rock Band: The metal band As I Lay Dying thought so.
 * Holier Than Thou: Cora Tull. Contrast Vernon Tull, who's actually a pretty decent guy.
 * Humans Are Bastards: Where to start.
 * Inner Monologue: Of most of the characters, including
 * Jerkass: It's easier to list the characters who aren't.
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jewel, to some.
 * Karma Houdini: Nothing bad ever happens to Anse, despite some underhanded things he did.
 * Magical Realism
 * Mind Screw: Not as much as Faulkner's other works, but still; especially concerning Darl and Addie.
 * In Section 30, Dewey Dell describes a nightmare she had where she could not feel anything, even the fact that she was a girl, and then she felt a "they" beneath her that was "like a piece of cool silk dragged across [her] legs." It's really a metaphor for her repressed sexuality.
 * My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Darl is clairvoyant. Darl narrates the moment of Addie's passing when he isn't even in the room. He also knows that Jewel is and that Dewey Dell is pregnant.
 * Nietzsche Wannabe: Darl has his moments, but Addie takes the cake.
 * One-Paragraph Chapter:
 * "My mother is a fish."
 * Similarly, there's a later chapter consisting of Cash's two-line winding thought that the coffin wasn't balanced properly, ending as suddenly as it begins as he realizes no one is "listening" to him.
 * Only Sane Man: Cash.
 * Parental Favoritism: Jewel is Addie's favorite
 * Posthumous Character: Addie, in one chapter. Sort of.
 * Prophecies Are Always Right


 * The Quiet One: Cash.
 * The Rashomon: As I Lay Dying features fifteen different narrators. The majority of the narration comes from the Bundrens, sans Jewel and Addie who only narrate one section of their own.
 * The Stoic: Darl. Hardly ever does Darl display any emotion. He doesn't even become emotional as he narrates the event of Addie being placed in her coffin.
 * Sanity Slippage: What happens to Darl over the course of the novel,