Language as Bridge and Barrier in Faulkners As I Lay Dying
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Scholars of literature and philosophy have continually grappled with the disparity between language and experience. Modern philosophers from Bacon to Heidegger acknowledged the inadequacy of language in terms of describing problems of being and existence. Later literary trends followed the same nomilistic aesthetic. American writers such as Hemingway and Pound were stripping the artifice of language to the bone in an effort to reveal the activating power or authenticity of reality. A shift from highly lyrical abstract writing towards a more concrete objective style ensued based on the notion that the concrete was more authentic than the abstract. William Faulkner's heightened style technically did not belong in this category of implicit concreteness. However, Faulkner followed the same nomilistic, if not stylistic, rejection of language as a means to articulate truth or reality. In Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying language is discredited by Addie, the central character, who says language is "a shape to fill a lack." Language in As I Lay Dying, continually undermines meaning, communication, memory, life, death and sexuality while serving as a tool to expose the tragic state of the human condition. While Faulkner's narrative discredits language it also employs it to perform a tour de force of poetic and philosophical gymnastics...