Faulkner's As I Lay Dying: Images of Faulkner and the South

Lesson One of the Curriculum Unit: Faulkner's As I Lay Dying: Form of a Funeral

Guiding Questions

• Who is William Faulkner?
• What makes "the South" an interesting setting?
• What does it mean to have multiple voices or perspectives instead of just one?

Learning Objectives

• Learn Faulkner's place in American literary history
• Explore Faulkner's "South" in the context of the historical South
• Understand and explore the use of multiple voices in narration

Preparing to Teach this Lesson

Activity

Questions that students might want to consider:

1. What is the 'voice' of their website? Who wrote it? For what purpose? [these are also good questions for students to ask when viewing any webpage for academic purposes]
2. What effect does the style or form of the source have on your interpretation of the content? Does it matter if you read a biography, a chronology, a map, or an image? Do certain forms illuminate certain things while obscuring others? In what way?
3. What are the advantages and disadvantages to having multiple perspectives on the same subject?

Web Links:

• From William Faulkner on the Web via Internet Public Library:
• Biography
• Chronology of Faulkner's Life,
• Faulkner Family Tree
• William Faulkner: Nobel Prize Speech via Internet Public Library
• Faulkner Biography at the Mississippi Writers Page via Internet Public Library
• Faulkner Image Gallery at the Mississippi Writers Page has several interesting and useful images, including:
• The Yocona River Bridge in the Early 1900s http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/faulkner_william/yocona.html
• Brief Faulkner biography via American Memory
• The South: What is it, Where is it?, excerpted from John Shelton Reed's My Tears Spoiled My Aim and available via EDSITEment reviewed American Studies at the University of Virginia, might be a good way for students to examine the multiple perspectives of the South. The article is lengthy, and uses statistics ranging from the 1920s to the 1980s, so teacher guidance is advised.
• Teachers might want to include some of the sections of Literature in the American South (as detailed in Preparing to Teach above). Drawn from The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, several excerpts have valuable information about the South in literature. Two valuable point of departure might be:
• Civil War
• Humor

Allow each group to offer a perspective, writing the information on a black board. After all groups have presented, you should have a list of different "perspectives." Discuss them and put them in the context of Faulkner's life and work. This activity serves two purposes. First, the fact finding aspect simply educates students about Faulkner's life, as well as some history of the South. Secondly, and equally importantly, the teacher can use this opportunity as an introduction to the idea of multiple perspectives or points-of-view in describing the life of one person. They are creating a narrative of Faulkner just as many perspectives help shape the narrative of Addie Bundren and her family.

Finish by reviewing the quotation by Evan Goodwin at the beginning of this lesson:

[Faulkner] often told his stories using multiple narratives, each with their own interests and biases, who allow us to piece together the 'true' circumstances of the story, not as clues in a mystery, but as different melodies in a piece of music that form a crescendo. The conclusion presents a key to understanding the broad panorama surrounding the central event in a way that traditional linear narratives simply are unable to accomplish.

Assessment

Ask students to maintain a journal while reading As I Lay Dying, where they can write down thoughts, questions, and ideas about the novel. They should be sure to include page numbers to relevant passages in the text. Their first entry can explore the following question: what makes "the South" a compelling literary setting?

Next Lesson

Return to curriculum unit overview—Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying: Form of a Funeral

Selected EDSITEment Websites

• William Faulkner on the Web
  [http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/faulkner.html]
• Biography
  [http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/owner.html]
• Chronology of Faulkner's Life,
  [http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/chronology.html]
• Faulkner Family Tree
• William Faulkner: Nobel Prize Speech
  [http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/faulkner/faulkner.html]
• Faulkner Biography at the Mississippi Writers Page
  [http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/faulkner_william/index.html]
• Faulkner Image Gallery [http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/
  faulkner_william/paris.html]at the Mississippi Writers Page has
  several interesting and useful images, including:
• The Yocona River Bridge in the Early 1900s
  [http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/faulkner_william/yocona.html]

American Memory
[http://memory.loc.gov/]

• Novelist William Faulkner
  [ http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/progress/jb_progress_faulkner_1.html]

American Studies at the University of Virginia
[http://xroads.virginia.edu/]

• The South: What is it, Where is it?, excerpted from
  John Shelton Reed's My Tears Spoiled My Aim

[http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/REED/tears.html]

• Literature in the American South
  [http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/esc.html]
• Civil War
  [http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/civilwar.html]
• Humor
  [http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/humor.html]