As I Lay Dying: Faulkner's Wasteland ?

Contents

1. Introduction

2. The literal - symbolic level of the relation

3. Relation of Atmosphere

4. Relation of Narration Structure

5. Conclusion

6. Bibliography

1. Introduction

It is a well-known fact that Faulkner in his work made extensive use of what T.S. Eliot had established as ‘the mythological method’.^[1] Like Eliot, he used the old myths in his narrations as an underlying human structure which yielded depth and meaning to his work and a certain kind of continuity of basic human virtues and vices. This was especially important in a time of general post-war disillusionment which, of course, affected deeply the literary conventions and styles of the time.

The debate of how much exactly Faulkner drew upon Eliot is held ever since the first book of Faulkner was published. It is considered probable that Faulkner knew the vegetation myths of Frazer and there can be hardly any doubt that Faulkner knew The Wasteland^[2] and the discussion of its sources.^[3] Unimportant and futile though it might therefore be to add another shabby brick to the impressive building of Faulkner criticism, I think it could be fun to once more oppose two outstanding works of Faulkner and Eliot in a close reading and see whether we can find a formerly neglected relation.

I believe that the influence of The Wasteland (including some of its most important sources; i.e. The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer and From Ritual to Romance by Jesie Weston) on As I Lay Dying^[4] works on different levels.

First on a literal - symbolic level.: Faulkner employs in a more or less unobtrusive way quite a few symbols or images of The Wasteland: April, Spring, New teeth, Gramophone, Fish, chuck, chuck, chuck (the sound of the adze) vs. Jug jug jug jug , five children, an abortion, several paraphrases (set my land in order vs. set my house in order)

Second on a level of atmosphere: Faulkner evokes through his dense and powerful prose the gloomy and portentous atmosphere of The Wasteland.

Third on a level of narration: The Wasteland is a patchwork of a multitude of different voices which are stringed together in the seer-like character of Tiresias.

So is As I lay dying. It is a patchwork of many voices which at first sight seem to be all equal to each other as far as the narrational standpoint is concerned. In a closer reading, however, one realizes that Darl relates events that he possibly cannot know, for he is not on the scene.

In the following I’d like to elaborate the above mentioned in more detail.

2. The literal - symbolic level of the relation

between As I Lay Dying and The Wasteland

2.1 Literal correspondences between As I Lay Dying and The Wasteland

There are indeed very few distinct literal borrowings to be found in As I Lay Dying as Mary Jane Dickerson points out in her essay ‘As I Lay Dying’ And ‘The Waste Land’ Some Relationships:”[ ] I assume he was using The Wasteland in a more subtle way here.”^[5] (Probably she has Pylon in her mind, in which Faulkner used The Wasteland more conspicuously.^[6] ) In fact, in some cases, the allusion to The Wasteland is either really very subtle or there is no allusion at all:

”Addie Bundren could not want a better one, a better box to lie in. It will give her confidence and comfort. I go on to the house, followed by the Chuck. Chuck. Chuck.of the adze.”(AIL, p.5)

This is Darl’s rather cynical comment on Cash’s making the coffin for Addie quite at the beginning of AIL. The chuck, chuck, chuck of the adze is phonetically not too far away from the jug, jug, jug of The Wasteland’s nightingale below:

”Twit twit twit

jug jug jug jug jug jug

so rudely forc’d.

Tereu”^[7] (The Wasteland, line 203)^[8]

Taking into account, that Addie was not exactly happy with the birth of Cash and Darl nor with Anse as a husband, I think it is not farfetched to interpret the chuck chuck chuck noise as an intended allusion to the cited passage of The Wasteland which in itself is an allusion to a Greek story of rape and marital tragedy. The idea that the onomatopoeic word chuck could be symbolical is supported by the fact that in Jewels section later on the noise of the adze is referred to as one lick less, one lick less. (AIL, p.15)

A more obvious correspondance between the two works might be shown by the following sets of citations:

”And then I see that the grip she was carrying was one of them little graphophones.”(AIL, p.261 )

”She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, And puts a record on the gramophone”

(WL line 256)

”God’s will be done, ” he says. ”Now I can get them teeth.” (AIL, p.52)

”To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.” (WL, line 144)

André Bleikasten comments in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying on this striking parallel the following way: ”[ ] thus two of the most significant objects in the novel – the false teeth and the gramophone – are already mentioned in the poem [ The Wasteland ]. It would be wrong, however, to attach too much importance to these analogies.”^[9] Instead, he rather stresses the

”unmistakable family likeness between Faulkner’s novel and the Waste Land [ ] the same atmosphere of cosmic desolation and exhaustion [ ] the use of the same elemental imagery and symbolism [ ] parallel references to myth and ritual.”^[10]

Yet I think, these literal parallels are in fact worth dwelling on more thoroughly, because first of all they draw our attention towards a possible relation between the two works and second is it always of interest in which context symbolically charged items are reused.

In The Wasteland the teeth occur in a pub conversation in which a friend of Lil advises the latter to buy a set of teeth before her husband is discharged from army. Otherwise the husband would rightly shun her. Lil, however, is not so enthusiastic about that particulary as she lost her teeth due to the side effects of her abortion pills. The teeth, as it would seem therefore, are a symbol of the absurd or grotesque in The Wasteland. So they are in As I Lay Dying. Anse gets his new teeth because he happens to be in town for the burrial of his dead wife. Sure, he badly needs these teeth but the way he gets them is utterly grotesque and absurd. To top it all, he gets a new wife whom he can apparently deceive with his shining new teeth. Both, Faulkner and Eliot use the artificial teeth to create a decadent atmosphere. An atmosphere of hidden decay and outrage behind a ludicrous facade of false renewal. A real renewal is not possible, although the notion of what could be such is shining through in The Wasteland by the evocation of Sir Frazer’s ancient vegetation rites. Faulkner, too, was acquainted with The Golden Bough (most probably) and assumably with its reverberations in The Wasteland so that Mary Jane Dickerson’s interpretation of the Bundrens’ journey really doesn’t seem to be far off the track:

”The planting of the corpse at the end of section I of the poem recalls the resurrection of the Corn-God Osiris; the burial of Addie at the end of the journey finds each Bundren making a futile stab at the renewal of life: Anse gets himself a new pair of teeth and a new wife, and Cash is looking forward to hearing the widow’s gramophone-which conveys to the reader the same sense of emptiness as Eliot’s reference to the typist’s gramophone in TheWasteland.”^[11] (The meaning of the myth of Osiris in this context will be elaborated later on.)

The teeth and the gramophone (the discussion of which I skip here) thus are powerful symbols for they show the weakness of modern attempts of renewal and regeneration.

Another striking parallel between The Wasteland and As I lay dying is the depreciation of spring as the season of renewal and awakening of natur. The beginning of Addie’s chapter

”It would be quiet there then, with the water bubbling up and away and the sun slanting quiet in the trees and the quiet smelling of damp rotting leaves and new earth; especially in the early spring, for it was worst then.” (AIL, p.169)

[...]

^[1] Adams, Richard P. Faulkner: Myth and Motion Princton (New Jersey): Princeton University

Press, 1968

^[2] Eliot, Thomas Sterne Collected Poems 1909-1962. London: Faber & Faber, 1963; Cited in the text with the lines following; hereafter refered to as WL.

^[3] Dickerson, Mary Jane As I Lay Dying And The Wasteland – Some Relationships in Mississippi Quarterly 17 (Summer 1964), p.129 - see especially the footnotes

^[4] Faulkner, William As I Lay Dying New York: Vintage International, 1990; All subsequent references (hereafter AIL) will appear in the text immediately following the quotation.

^[5] ibid., p.129

^[6] Bleikasten, Andre Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying Rev. Ed. Translated by Roger Little

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973, p.17.

Another Influence is that of T.S. Eliot: already perceptible in his early poems, it may also be traced in most of the novels Faulkner wrote in the 20s and 30s, and is almost embarrassingly conspicuous in Pylon (1935).

^[7] Latin vocative form of Tereus, who "rudely forc'd" Philomela; it was also one of the conventional words for a nightingale's song in Elizabethan poetry. Cf. the song from John Lyly's Alexander and Campaspe (1564):

Oh, 'tis the ravished nightingale.
Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu! she cries,"

and lines 100ff. http://people.a2000.nl/avanarum/index.html

^[8] T.S Eliot, Collected Poems 1909-1962 (Faber&Faber)

^[9] Bleikasten, Andre Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying Rev. Ed. Translated by Roger Little

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973, p.15

^[10] ibid.

^[11] Dickerson, Mary Jane. As I Lay Dying and The Waste Land --Some Relationships in Mississippi Quarterly 17

(Summer 1964), p.132