As I Lay Dying Faulkner Writing Style

The writing style of As I Lay Dying is still a bit convoluted and difficult to understand, though not nearly as difficult as The Sound and the Fury. At least in As I Lay Dying, everything seems to be happening more or less chronologically and no characters have a non-linear perception of time (we're looking at you Benjy). The root of this difficulty in reading is not based on plot confusion or time, but in the way in which the characters speak (both to other people and to themselves via thoughts). They all sound very rural and at times a bit uneducated (not necessarily unintelligent, but many of the characters often don't abide by grammar rules that they would have been taught in school). This is obviously intentional and Faulkner's part and is meant to inform the characterization and setting. Despite the difficulty in reading the text at times (it never is unreadable, but one can't skim AILD and still know what's going on), it often has a poetic feel to it; this poetry comes more from imagery than from excessively flowery language.

One thing I find especially interesting about Faulkner's writing style is that, while all the characters retain some of the flawed grammar and rural language, there are modifications made to individual chapters to further inform characters as unique people. For instance, Darl seems to have by far the most poetic and least flawed way of speaking and thinking of all the character's whose perspectives we see from; this adds to the description other characters make of him that he is kind, loving, and more tender than most men are while not explicitly saying it. This modification of individual character voices works at times more subtly but often more effectively than anything else.