As I Lay Dying and its Greek inspirations

 

As I Lay Dying is, at its core, deeply tied to stories from Greek legends told thousands of years ago. Both the Odyssey and Faulkner’s novel take place in the aftermath of era-defining armed conflicts. As in most ancient literature, the Odyssey starts in media res. The ramifications of the Trojan War permeate throughout the text, but Homer refrains from depicting it. Similarly, the Bundren family live in an American South where social concepts of the planter class and noblesse oblige have been lost. The Civil War enjoys even less direct implication from the novel than its Greek analogue had. As I Lay Dying diverges from its inspiration even further with its depiction of both Anse and Addie. Both characters could seemingly fit the role of Odysseus. Anse is the patriarch of his family, he often has the final say and his children suffer or benefit (usually the former) from his decision. Meanwhile, it is Addie’s hometown that is the final destination of their journey. It is her Jefferson that takes the role of Ithaca. As I Lay Dying passes the role of hero from Anse to Addie throughout the text. Faulkner’s use of mythology as a basis for his novel further adds to the ambiguity of the text.

The vague Addie chapter is the source of much confusion on who best matches with Odysseus. While out of the two it is seemingly Anse who best fits the criteria of a traditional hero: being a man, a patriarch of a family, actively partaking in a journey, and alive; it is Addie who the title is most likely attributed to (she is rather dead after all and happens to be lying down for nigh all of the text). For the sake of maintaining continuity with the Greek myths, I would propose a connection with As I Lay Dying to Aeschylus’ Oresteia, the most famous work depicting Agamemnon’s betrayal and murder at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra from which scenes Faulkner’s title is derived from. The Oresteia is a trilogy consisting of the tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and the Eumenides. The work begins with the head of the House of Atreus (Agamemnon) being murdered at the hands of his wife and her lover (*It is worth noting that while Aeschylus lived over a hundred years after the death of Homer, the oral story of Orestes predated the Odyssey and Homer would have assumed that his affluent literate audience would have been familiar with it). The second play follows Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who avenges his father by Aegisthus as well as his own mother. In the finale, Orestes makes peace with the Eumenides (furies) for his grave crime of matricide and returns home.

(Peter Hall’s London showing of The Oresteia, Clytemnestra converses with the Argive chorus) 

(*https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0700021h.html)

Despite its greater dissimilarities to As I Lay Dying, I prefer this text as it is a more complete version of the Agamemnon story that is reduced to only a few line fragments in the Odyssey. Additionally, it also shifts the focal point of the hero from Anse (who, in brevity, is not our novel’s hero) to one of the Bundren children, the American South’s Orestes. The quintessential Orestes being one that spurns and “kills” his own mother and receiving her curse, before going on a journey and being acquitted of all guilt. Jewel’s journey follows a similar path. Similar to Orestes, he is depicted as being harsh and indifferent to his mother’s pleas. He does not say goodbye to her, and it is arguably his absence at her near-death that is the final blow for Addie. In this interpretation, Anse is undoubtedly the Agamemnon while Addie is the unfaithful Clytemnestra trying to get back at her husband for his wrongdoings.

*Orestes fleeing from the Furies to the city of Athens

Of course, the Oresteia isn’t a perfect analogue either. It reduces Addie to the role of evil adulteress who is nothing but disrespected by her children who hate her for what she has done to their father. This is not the Addie we see in As I Lay Dying, given that we do not “see” much of her. Faulkner molded her role to be an imperfect replica of both Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, unfaithful mistress and dying spouse. Similarly, Anse is both mistreated husband and cold, uncaring widow(er). As a modernist novel, Faulkner subverts Homer’s Odyssey into characters we cannot understand. This is on purpose, Addie is forcibly removed from us. In her own words we see her experience joy from beating schoolchildren and a cruel indifference to her husband. From Darl’s eyes, we see her cry when Jewel lies to her and buys a horse with his own money, it is shockingly human. While a strong interpretation of the title attributes the words “As I Lay Dying” to Addie, she is neither protagonist/hero nor hardly even character. Like Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, neither parent goes through a hero’s journey, for it isn’t their story. If Faulkner is following Campbell’s monomyth, it is through the experiences of characters like Jewel and Darl. They alone are Faulkner’s heroes, regardless of title or pretense.