Representation of Social Disintegration: Interior Monologue in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying

Abstract

The present research project focuses on the issue of the Interior Monologue in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. This novel focuses on the funeral procession of Addie Bundren and the bereaved family members. Where they face many difficulties on the way to Jefferson.This thesis represents the Interior Monologue technique by using the fifteen narrators with their own expressions that bring confusion and contradiction in the novel. By using this technique Faulkner wants to reflect the fragmented psyche of the aristocrat people of twentieth century from the south caused by capitalism. It reflects the social classes of the 1920s by showing the growing difference between upper class and lower class. Furthermore, he presents the psychology of the characters by using the flow of ideas, feelings, thoughts and sensation in the minds of the fifteen narrators, without any logical, punctuation marks and reality.By using all these term he uses Interior Monologue in the novel. To prove this research the researcher was uses the ideas of William James, and Virginia Woolf. Keywords: Stream of Consciousness, interior monologue, flux, isolation