Animal Magnetism in Faulkner's as I Lay Dying

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Ryan Molloy David Sherman Modernism, Atheism, God April 10, 2013 Animal Magnetism in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying In Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, the vivid depiction of animal life appears to do nothing more than establish the backwater setting of Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi; however, upon closer examination, the fauna take on a surprisingly human essence. Through this anthropomorphizing of sorts, Faulkner resituates human language within the realm of nonhuman communication and exposes the traces of animalism in language itself, revealing the links between animals and the new forms of communication, representation and literary aesthetics that emerged in modernism. Figurative language prevails within As I Lay Dying, particularly the quintessential animal metaphor. Faulkner frequently likens animals to humans. He refers to a buzzard as “a old baldheaded man,” and he describes a horse as “moaning and groaning like a natural man” (Faulkner 119, 155). Although one is inclined to take these metaphors as mere means of comparison, their incessancy gradually establishes a sense of humanity around the animals. At the same time, Faulkner’s characters frequently liken one another to animals. While watching his neighbors circle Addie’s body, Jewel likens them to buzzards; Tull describes Vardaman as an owl, a steer and a puppy, and Anse is compared to an owl as he leans over Addie’s body with “humped silhouette partaking of that owl-like quality of awry-feathered, disgruntled outrage” (Faulkner 15, 69, 70, 49). Not only do Faulkner’s comparisons serve to blur the lines between man and animal, but his invocation of animal imagery also helps to communicate states that are lost in translation between these two worlds (White 83). The animal operates as the original metaphor; amidst the chaos surrounding Faulkner’s characters, animals provide “the most natural means of making

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