A Comparison between William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and the Joseph Campbell’s Hero's Journey

    

William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying” is a unique and compelling book for modernist enthusiasts that tells a story of a family of a father, Anse Bundren, and five children who lost the mother of the household, Addie Bundren. Unlike most books readers are familiar with today, “As I Lay Dying” follows a modernist structure, meaning it rejects traditional literary structure and focuses more on the main character’s stream of consciousness and experience. Because the modernist movement in literature differs greatly from traditional forms of literature, readers might struggle to understand the book’s theme or message, the meaning of simple dialogue, and whether modernist literatures have a theme at all is debatable. This leads to the question: Does “As I Lay Dying” have any elements of a traditional narrative? More specifically, does it follow Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey? After reading halfway through the book, the history and nature of post World War I modernism, Faulkner’s book shows that “As I Lay Dying” does not follow a Hero’s Journey narrative but instead provides a critique to the Hero’s Journey.

The similarities with Dadaism and post-World War One Modernism show that Dadaism heavily influenced post-World War One modernist literature in radically criticizing the old societal beliefs. It started as a movement to critique and mock the traditional political rhetoric of the Great Powers during World War I, but spread as a way to communicate certain people’s dissatisfaction with societal norms and values during those times ("Dadaism"). Dadaist art forms demonstrate a warped sense of reality that shows just how critical the artists were to tradition and contemporary culture. Although modernism occurred in the late nineteenth century, William Faulkner published "As I Lay Dying” after World War I in 1930 ("As I Lay Dying"). World War I heavily played a role in the rise in Modernist literature, due to its rejection of traditional literature. Like Dadaism, modernist literature represented a call for re-evaluating aesthetic beliefs and old ideas. Because the rise of modernism correlated with the rise of a similar movement Dadaism, it is safe to say the post World War One era of modernism was inspired by Dadaism’s radical approach to the tearing down of old culture. Because William Faulkner’s book was published during this peak of modernist literature, it shows that his novel provides his critique of a traditional Hero’s Journey through a modernist way.

Additionally, the contrast between each character's narrative in "As I Lay Dying" shows the highly fragmented nature of this book demonstrates Faulkner’s lack of concern with following such a central narrative like Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. In fact, William Faulkner made some character’s contradict each other in some of his chapters. Many characters manipulate events to make themselves others as virtuous heroes and contradict the narratives of others. Furthermore, the book does not spend a decent time on one character to signify where the reader should spend the most time to map and identify the hero’s growth and development. In the first Cora chapter, Cora expressed her disapproval of most of Anse Bundren’s family except for Darl. For example, in page 36, Cora described a Bundren as “caring for nothing except how to get something with the least amount of work.” However, in page 94-106 of “As I Lay Dying”, the story gives the reader a different perspective of the Bundrens. This section constantly switches narratives from Darl, to Cash, to Darl, to Vardaman, back to Darl again and then to Anse. What is interesting is that from these pages, all of the narratives describe the same event, just in different ways, and with some parts deliberately cut out (Faulkner 94-106) before the Anse chapter. Only in Anse’s chapter does the reader ever get a clear, somewhat less fragmented narrative describing the event. Anse acts as someone of higher moral standards, describing the entire scenario and heavily criticizing his kids for “flouting” their mother’s death right before they left their house to bury her. This section forces the reader to view Anse as the most virtuous character, as someone who faces the adversary of trying to run a dysfunctional family. The contrasting views, morals, and narratives of each character in William Faulkner’s novel shows Faulkner’s effort to undermine or even mock the Hero’s Journey altogether. 

All in all, approaching the books halfway mark, I decided that “As I Lay Dying” does not follow the Hero’s Journey timeline, but rather critiques it. He wrote his book shortly after the Dada Era, which heavily influenced post-World War I modernist literature. The post-World War I modernist rhetoric heavily shown in his writing further shows Faulkner's goal of criticizing traditional narratives that model character development through a transformative journey. William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying” showed enough characters switching and manipulating truths to their advantage to lead me to believe that his book has no Hero’s Journey, but only a critique of it.

Works Cited:

1. "As I Lay Dying." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Apr. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_I_Lay_Dying#:~:text=As%20I%20Lay%20Dying%20is,novels%20of%20the%2020th%20century.

2. “Dadaism." The Dali, thedali.org/dali-library-guide-1/dada-2/.

3. Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith, 1930. pp. 94-106.