No joke- Addie might actually be the fish

I’ll be honest: As I Lay Dying is really confusing. I had trouble understanding what was going on because of the way Faulkner just started the story without any explanation or set up. He doesn’t even attempt to make things easier for us to understand in the slightest. There were many ideas that were vague and difficult for me to catch on to (ex: Dewey Dell talking about cotton-picking while also referring to the fact that she is pregnant.) What adds to all of this confusion is that every chapter is written from a different character’s perspective, and the chapters aren’t even in perfect chronological order. I have always struggled with this stream of consciousness/multiple narrators style of writing, and personally, I usually find this to be less engaging and entertaining to read. But one thing I learned from my past experience with this style of writing is that it provides more room for interpretation, and this is definitely true for As I Lay Dying.

In As I Lay Dying, there is no objective truth. We are never given any concrete facts, since everything that happens is filtered through the minds and thoughts of the narrators. What we might consider “facts” are actually just the opinions of the narrators. At first, I found this to be frustrating because I was so used to books that just had one perspective and gave me a clear, objective storyline. But now I understand why this style of writing may be considered as more intriguing: several people can read this same book and come out with totally different opinions on what happened. This is because this type of book provides several versions of reality. Every narrator has his or her own version of reality, and it is up to the reader to decide which character he or she wants to believe. Let’s take for example Addie’s death. Although this seems like a very objective happening, the characters interpreted this in drastically different ways. Dewey Dell seems to react to her mother’s death “normally”, as she wept and threw her body onto Addie’s dead body out of sorrow. Dewey Dell obviously accepts the fact that her mother is dead, and she doesn’t seem to have any strange opinions about this. However, Vardaman has a very different idea on what happened. First off, Vardaman believes that Peabody is responsible for his mother’s death, since his mother was “fine” until the doctor showed up. Vardaman eventually believes that the corpse is actually not his mother, because he says that Addie had left before she had become confined to her bed. Vardaman also believes that his mother is the fish and comes to the conclusion that once everyone eats the fish, Addie will become alive in all of them. Darl on the other hand believes that he doesn’t have a mom now. He also says that he thinks Jewel’s mom is a horse. These are three totally different interpretations of Addie’s death, and it all leads to this question: who are we supposed to believe?

Although Vardman and Darl’s thoughts and interpretations may seem really weird, their perspectives are still a version of reality that is given and must be considered. No matter how absurd it may sound that Addie is a fish or a horse, this is still a possibility since the truth depends on who the reader decides is trustworthy. I’m not sure if this blogpost made sense to you guys, but basically what I’m trying to point out is that because there is no objective storyline, the reader is given the power to judge which point of view is trustworthy enough to believe. There is no “right” or “wrong” because everything in this book is just different characters’ opinions on events that took place. So let me ask you this: do you believe that Addie is in fact the fish?