Who Is Afraid Of William Faulkner?

As I Lay Dying has since long become a target of heated discussion largely because of its deviance and opacity. Considerable research has been done on it both at home and abroad without significant breakthroughs at certain controversies haunting the book. The thesis is devoted to a multi-level demystification of the book on the basis of close reading by disclosing chapter after chapter the mystery hanging over the book. Firstly, it tries to penetrate the apparent simplicity of a "tour-de-force" to expose a conscious mind bent on dramatization, namely, the "mythical" method of rendering chaotic contemporary experience by manipulating a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity; secondly, it traces various literary formative factors that make the book possible to show how flagrantly Faulkner has "robbed" to make his story plump up. More importantly, it puts forward (he "Eddy Hypothesis", the gist of which postulates that Faulkner must have punned on the name of the heroine Addie to mean an "Eddy". This interpretation, as supported by substantial internal evidence, provides an ideal paradigm to lay bare the nature of the journey: quest for truth of life with the eddy reaching out to spark repercussions in everyone drawn into its vortex. Fourthly, the thesis avails itself of relevant theories concerning Mind Style and Speech & Thought Presentation introduced in Style in Fiction by Leech and Short to bring to light in some measure the Faulknerian Style, the pervasive stream-of-consciousness technique in particular. Very limited and superficial as the interpretation is, it displays the target style bears thematic concerns and helps to acquire a fuller understanding and appreciation of the author's artistic achievement. Finally, the thesis concludes on one hand, the limited demystification can never wish to exhaust the labyrinthic book, on the other, the different levels of demystification are governed by one and the same centripetal force - the magic inherent in a master fiction to form an organic whole.