Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 143
Humor in William Faulkner
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the two views gives rise to a complicated and
ambivalent feeling of hilarity and despair. . . .
The interplay of seriousness which reaches
toward tragedy and of humor which is practically
farce is part of the complex success o f As I Lay Dying.
In a sense, it reinforces the theme of the separation of
words and acts. . . . At the same time it precludes any
easy generalizations about the funeral journey itself.
Any event or series of events elicits various and, at
times, contradictory responses.^
Though there are other humorous effects in the novel,
Vickery explains most of the humor of As I Lay Dying when she says
that it derives primarily from the combination of the antagonistic
views of the Bundrens and their observers. The two views, that the
Bundrens' actions are rational and that they are not rational are not
easily resolvable and serve to prevent any easy generalizations about
the novel. They serve to prevent resolution.
One of the contradictions between what the Bundrens believe
and what their neighbors believe is seen in Vardaman's statement
"But my mother is a fish. Vernon seen it. He was t h e r e " A s we
know, Vernon has not seen it. The contradiction is not important in one
sense, for the reader already knows that Addie Bundren is not a fish;
but the fact that Vardaman must use Vernon as evidence casts doubt
on his own conviction of his mother's metamorphosis.
As far as the funeral procession is concerned, one of the
strongest statements of disapproval is made by Samson. When
Samson tries to persuade the Bundrens to sleep inside, and they refuse
in order to be with the corpse, he tells us of his thoughts and actions.
"'She's been dead long enough to get over that foolishness,' I says.
Because I got just as much respect for the dead as ere a man, but you got
to respect the dead themselves, and a woman that's been dead in a
box for four days, the best way to respect her is to get her into the
ground as quick as you can" (AILD, 419). Here, Faulkner has
combined two antagonistic views of what constitutes respect, and
there can be no certainty of whose view is the correct one.
Further humor in the novel comes from the juxtaposition of
the Bundrens' overt and secret reasons for taking the body to Jefferson.
The reader can never be sure of the real reason why any one of most of