Space-time and the Human Mind in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying
Corey Jenrette, 11/22/23
Set in fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, William Faulkner’s 1930 novel As I Lay Dying chronicles the Bundren family’s quest to bury their dead matriarch, Addie Bundren. The cast of characters includes the father Anse and children Jewel, Darl, Cash, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman. The novel has fifteen different narrators over fifty-nine chapters. Each family member gets at least one chapter to speak. Darl narrates the majority of them, while Jewel and Addie each get one a piece. This fragmented narrative structure allows each narrator to express their perceptions of reality through their own voice. These expressions often present contrasting perceptions of time and space, questioning the truth of the matter in the process. Time specifically is a common point of contention between the family members, as family members often express irreconcilable perceptions of time. Darl’s dominant, and at times omnipresent, voice allows Faulkner to transcend the separation of space and time, interrogating consciousness and truth in the process. Faulkner uses the narrative’s fragmented structure and Darl’s voice to experiment with contemporaneous perceptions of time, foreseeing many time-related advancements in physics in the process. These experimentations then cause a fracture in human perception that suggests human incapability of experiencing the entirety of truth at once. Through Darl, Faulkner presents the consequences of reaching beyond human limits, while remedying them with Cash’s sense of order and balance.
Lorentz, Poincare, Einstein, and Minkowski were all prominent physicists during Faulkner’s time. They were at the forefront of time theories. They strove to understand how time worked beyond earth and human observation. Klinaku takes one of Lorentz’s widely admired equations, compares it to Galileo’s understandings, and does some math to prove some of Lorentz’s failures. Klinaku then situates his study in the context of early twentieth century physics studies. He writes, “Lorentz and Poincare, when faced with Eq. (3), failed to consider the DE [differential equation]. They went so far as to say, that ‘local time’ is something that cannot be measured. Even Einstein and Minkowski, known today as founders of the correct explanation of the local time, also failed to understand the relativity of time in a “compound relative motion” (Klinaku 473). These physicists thought they had almost figured it out, and they had in some respects. They were sorely mistaken in other respects, such as the relative progression of time. They were all concerned with unveiling the true progression of time and its specific connection to space. Speculating how time works at different points in space was one way they approached this unveiling. This is something that Faulkner, knowingly or not, foresaw and articulated in As I Lay Dying. Faulkner’s portrayals of time in the novel correctly articulate and correct many of the misunderstandings contemporaneous physicists held in his time. His portrayals also question the ethics of these physicists’ pursuits by questioning the consequences for the human mind.
Katzir explores the development of time standards and its social implications in the early twentieth century. He argues that the standardization of time across regions created a uniformity that allowed for development of centralized labor systems. These systems “enabled large corporations to dominate their technological fields and to advance a hierarchical view of society at large that was ‘at odds with America’s original democracy’” (Katzir 122). The development of standard clocks in the early twentieth century, Katzir argues, was key for the overall development of the modern world. He then gives the artists’ perspective from Charlie Chaplin’s point of view. Katzir writes, “[a]s depicted by Chaplin [in Modern Times], the mechanization of production required synchronizing the actions of workers in one location, namely, the factory… Synchronization, in turn, demanded and led to both the widespread availability of accurate time signals and a stronger time consciousness throughout the population” (Katzir 120). Time standardization was subtle but deadly. Without much compulsion, the clock quickly began to rule all aspects of modern life. This created a sort of tyranny of time that has plagued modern life since. The linear progression of time and its strictness has demanded conformity of modern individuals, especially in the workplace. The modern obsession with the linear progression of time prompted many physicists to explore the confines of time. These explorations and experiments proved that there was more to time than simple linear progression. Theories, such as Einstein’s relativity theories, speculated that temporal progression differed depending on the perceiver’s point in space. The late twentieth century saw many physicists running experiments, such as the Hafele–Keating experiment, to prove these theories. A careful reading of time in As I Lay Dying will prove Faulkner as an early theoretical physicist, as he is writing before many of these theories had any experimental proof.
The name of Faulkner’s fictional county illustrates a certain space-time connection. Yoknapatawpha is a Chickasaw word, meaning “water flows slow through flat land”. Faulkner specifically identifies Yoknapatawpha County as a place where time seems non-linear or unmoving. The shape of the county’s land has a specific effect on the progression of time. Urgo argues that “Yoknapatawpha may be less a place than a perspective, less significant for mapping a landscape than for mapping a mode of consciousness” (Urgo 639). He notes that Faulkner first names the county in As I Lay Dying. Urgo then asserts that Faulkner utilizes Darl to portray the conscious landscape of Yoknapatawpha. He writes, “Darl Bundren is full of a landscape that has begun to move; his eyes are full with a landscape that for years had stood still but now was being named Yoknapatawpha, as if to proffer that what drives the human spirit is not knowledge of what is but imagination of what might be” (Urgo 642). Darl is the first character to access this conscious landscape and thus has the pleasure of defining its features and boundaries. Darl has faculties to see the inner-lives of those around him, and therefore has access to souls that bring life to the county. Darl can see the ugly in people. Urgo suggests this allows him to upset paradise in a fall mimicking that of Eden. Darl’s clairvoyance allows Faulkner to create a multidimensional space and consciousness by integrating Darl’s omniscient voice with the limited voices of other characters in the novel.
Darl specifically serves as a vehicle for Faulkner’s temporal theories. He specifically ties time to space, emphasizing space-time interdependence. While trying to cross the river with Addie in her coffin, Darl states, “[i]t is as though the space between us were time: an irrevocable quality. It is as though time, no longer running straight before us in a diminishing line, now runs parallel between us like a looping string” (Faulkner 146). Darl presents temporal progression in a non-linear fashion. His presentation of time does not depend on the chronological order of events. It is as though time and space merge. This is not a forward progression of time, but an outward progression. His notion of a “looping string” conjures images of Nietzsche’s notion of eternal recurrence. The Bundrens are in that river for a singular moment, yet it feels like eternity.. They are all continuously stuck in that river for all of time in some fashion, because they have been there. Their space dictates their time. Of the river, Darl states, “we had reached the place where the motion of the wasted world accelerates just before the final precipice” (Faulkner 146). The river “talks up to [them] in a murmur become ceaseless and myriad” (Faulkner 141). This depiction of the river stands in staunch juxtaposition to the county’s name. This juxtaposition highlights the dependence of time upon space. As early physicists theorized and later physicists proved, time moves faster the further away the observer gets from the earth’s surface. Inversely, time moves slower the closer the observer gets to the earth’s surface.
Zink articulates this notion well. He argues that the idea of stasis, or arrest, permeates and haunts Faulkner’s fiction. He identifies three major variations of Faulknerian stasis: “(1) motion that is so slow as to appear motionless (‘uninferant of progress’); (2) motion that is only the observable movement within some more radical change; (3) motion that is normally rapid or violent, an ideal moment of which is ‘frozen’” (Zink 287). For As I Lay Dying, Zink argues that Faulkner uses these variations of stasis to detach characters and the reader from the objective world. Faulkner blurs the sensory experience of time to approach the “spaceless consciousness” of characters (Zink 293). Faulkner separates measured time from experienced time to better assess the true value of things, for experienced time contains true consciousness. Measured time is external. Experienced time is internal. The two are separate but integral to and dependent upon one another. Faulkner’s view of time relies on this dependency. As Zink writes, “[a]ll of [Faulkner’s] significant experiences of meaning and his motives to action are internal. It is in the consciousness that he transcends the limitations of both time and space” (Zink 301). Darl’s merging of space and time in the river sequence exemplifies this notion of a “spaceless consciousness”. Space and time no longer exist separately. This merging allows Faulkner to transcend the limitations they present separately and investigate consciousness and truth from a new perspective.
Darl’s clairvoyance adds another layer to Faulkner’s conceptualization of time and space. His narration of Addie’s death also presents a transcendence of space and time as separate entities. Darl is not in Addie’s direct presence at the time of her death, yet he relates every detail as if he were. He narrates the entire sequence, detailing the actions of all the characters present. He then turns to Jewel, who is with Darl and not present for Addie’s death, and states, “Jewel, I say, she is dead, Jewel. Addie Bundren is dead” (Faulkner 52). This chapter most clearly proves that Darl can be in multiple places in one singular moment in time. This scene also lays the foundation for Darl’s unraveling that culminates in his placement in an insane asylum. His clairvoyance seems to shatter his objective world. Faulkner’s use of italics suggest that Darl is attempting to relate the details of Addie’s death while informing Jewel of her death at the same time. The two sequences interrupt one another. While Darl is in Jewel’s presence, he states, “about the shattered spokes and about Jewel’s ankles a runnel of yellow neither water nor earth swirls, curving with the yellow road neither of earth nor water, down the hill dissolving into a streaming mass of dark green neither of earth nor sky” (Faulkner 49). Here Darl presents a broken space. In Darl’s vision, the shattered spokes and Jewel’s ankles are interrupted by a runnel that is completely foreign to him. It dissolves into some “dark green mass” that he does not have the language to describe. It is “neither of earth nor sky”. This runnel interrupts his entire visual space and breaks his entire linguistic framework. This clairvoyance overwhelms him and shatters his perceptions of reality.
Ross argues that “Faulkner experiments with time, with ways of representing time through grammar and through the conventions of narration: events that appear inconsistent by standard definitions of fictive time become on closer inspection carefully and intriguingly ordered” (Ross 724). He asserts that the characters’ monologues fail to fit linear patterns of time because time does not proceed consecutively in the novel. He then explains that this creates flexibility of reality within the novel, which is a more accurate depiction of time. Each character’s perception of time represents a different “quality of consciousness” (726). He writes, “Faulkner seeks, through technical means, greater flexibility in the representation of human experience” (Ross 726). This inventiveness dissolves restriction for Faulkner and allows him more flexibility to portray inner reality. He ends with a discussion on Darl. For Ross, even Faulkner’s variability of tense is not enough for Darl to express himself. Words are not enough for Darl. He “is left with only the despair of not knowing the true nature of his existence” (Ross 736). Through language, Faulkner experiments with perceptions of time to establish the boundaries of non-linear, psychological time. Though Faulkner’s experimentation establishes a non-linear time and closer approach to truth, it comes at a price. It breaks the characters’ humanity and perceptions of reality, especially Darl’s.
Darl’s institutionalization exemplifies the consequences of having a complete understanding of reality’s underpinnings. Darl’s experience of time through his clairvoyance immitates the contemporaneous physicists’ pursuits to develop a complete understanding of the relationship between space and time. His unraveling and institutionalization suggest that having this complete understanding would overwhelm human consciousness and fracture it beyond repair. Linguistically, Darl’s narration of his institutionalization depicts a complete fracture of perception and actualization, as he narrates his own experience in third person. Darl states, “Darl has gone to Jackson. They put him on the train, laughing, down the long car laughing, the heads turning like the heads of owls when he passed” (Faulkner 253). He continues, “Our brother Darl in a cage in Jackson where, his grimed hands lying light in the quiet interstices, looking out he foams” (Faulkner 254). Darl loses the ability to relate his own experiences through his own eyes. He has become an outside observer of his own life. Talvin argues that times destroys Darl’s objective world because “the world does not yield to his conception of [time]” (Talvin 97). His conceptualization of space-time has transcended a human comprehension of the relationship, so he is no longer able to relate his experience on human terms. He cannot use his human language to relate his beyond-human experiences. He has become a victim in this sense.
Degenfelder argues that Faulkner created Yoknapatawpha as a remedy for the communication breakdown of modern life and the human isolation that came with it. Yoknapatawpha county is a vision of cultural unity in the face of disillusionment. She claims that Faulkner uses two distinct styles in the novel, either separately or simultaneously. She writes, “[t]o dramatize the individual’s alienation from the community, Faulkner uses a baroque style; to depict the solidarity of the community’s folk, he utilizes a colloquial mode” (Degenfelder 122). Consequently, the baroque style dominates As I Lay Dying, especially the more astute characters. Darl is the most perceptive and articulate, yet he is the most troubled and alienated. She then conducts a syntactical analysis of the characters’ speech to distinguish which style each most closely mimics. She proves her assumption of Darl, and asserts that Cash is the symbol of balance in the novel. He brings order to the family. She writes, “[a] character’s choice of diction, as of syntax, is likewise dependent upon the resources of language, revealing his degree of linguistic control and his perspective of reality. Conversely, diction reveals the extent to which language imposes reality on the character” (Degenfelder 142). Faulkner refuses to value one of his styles over the other. They are simultaneous existences of equal value. One is orderly, like Cash. The other is chaotic, like Darl. Faulkner stresses the importance of colloquial, unifying language while still acknowledging the brilliance that baroque language allots.
Cash is the craftsman of the family. He sees order in balance in all of his endeavors. His first chapter exemplifies his sense of order and balance, as he carefully lists all the ways in which he crafted an internal order and balance to Addie’s coffin (Faulkner 82-83). He obsesses over the balance of Addie’s coffin. Of the coffin, he states, “It wont balance. If you want it to tote and ride on a balance” (Faulkner 96). This obsession with balance and order serves as a counterweight to Darl’s chaotic unraveling. His obsession with balance and order has not caused him to mentally fracture in the way Darl has. Once Darl goes to the asylum, Cash’s orderly way of thinking allows him to be the character to close the novel. He ties all of the loose ends and states what has become of the other Bundrens at the end of the novel. The voice of balance and order is the voice that brings closure to the narrative, restoring some sense of order in the process. To some extent, Darl’s fracturing had left him incapable of relating the narrative on human terms. Darl cannot close the novel, so Cash does. Though Faulkner uses Cash to restore order, Cash also exemplifies the dangers of being too orderly. Throughout the Bundren family’s journey, all Cash can see is imbalance because all he wants is balance.
Faulkner presents the dark, grim conscious consequences of pursuing a complete understanding of the space-time predicament, while offering hope in the form of balance and order. Darl and Cash are each representative of the consequences and the remedy respectively. Faulkner witnessed society become obsessed with time and scientists become obsessed with understanding time. He saw how these pursuits have the potential to fracture human perceptions of space and time. Einstein’s theories of relativity, published in 1905, and the standardization of time created obsessions with time that permeated modern life. Extreme order and balance were his remedies to these dangers. Through the presentations of the two extremes, Faulkner investigates the virtues and vices in each to depict them as counterweights. This provides Faulkner with the tools to achieve a closer estimation of the human consciousness by depicting the breaking points of each extreme.
Works Cited
Degenfelder, E. Pauline. “Yoknapatawphan Baroque: A Stylistic Analysis of As I Lay Dying.” Style, vol. 7, no. 2, Spring 1973, pp. 121-56.
Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. Vintage Books, 1990.
Katzir, Shaul. “Time Standards for the Twentieth Century : Telecommunication, Physics, and the Quartz Clock.” The Journal of Modern History, vol. 89, no. 1, March 2017, pp. 119–50.
Klinaku, Shukri. “Lorentz, Poincare, Einstein, and Minkowski Failed–and Modern Physics Is Still Failing–to Know the Time Doppler Effect.” Physics Essays, vol. 34, no. 4, December 2021, pp. 472–74.
Ross, Stephen M. “Shapes of Time and Consciousness in As I Lay Dying.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language, vol. 16, no. 4, January 1975, pp. 723–37.
Talvin, Zachry. “‘Ravel Out Into Time’ : Phenomenology and Temporality in As I Lay Dying.” The Mississippi Quarterly, vol. 68, no. 1–2, January 2015, pp. 83–100.
Urgo, Joseph R. “The Yoknapatawpha Project: The Map of a Deeper Existence.” Mississippi Quarterly, vol. 57, no. 4, Fall 2004, pp. 639–55.
Zink, Karl E. “Flux and the Frozen Moment: The Imagery of Stasis in Faulkner’s Prose.” Modern Language Association, vol. 71, no. 3, June 1956, pp. 285-301.