As a book As I Lay Dying is hard to understand and becoming a reader do that book is problematic in terms of the one reading it. One may easily give up reading it suggesting that he/she cannot understand. Yet why? The reason could be book’s distinctness from novel concept that people familiar with. Usually people are accustomed to reading books finishing with happy endings yet in Faulkner’s work actually there is one event: mother dies and they try to bring her to Jefferson, it is just simple but Faulkner’s style telling the story is not simple, clear. As a reader when I think why he does that, I can say that if he told the story that simple, it would not be attractive and it would be just an ordinary story. By showing fifteen different characters Faulkner both makes his story different and a new thing in literature. Another difference from ordinary stories is that Faulkner does not give background about his character; a boy called Darl starts the story all of a sudden. From the very beginning tale becomes hard to reader so readers cannot get what the point is and what he is saying about. There are inner thoughts of characters and their observations. only are there voices of family member but also reader is provided with the thoughts of the neighbors and some people from Jefferson , including Addie-the dead woman-.With Addie’s voice book is divided and it could be seen as a flashbacks as we have with Darl. Thanks to flashbacks reader could learn about their past. For instance in Daryl’s voice;
“...And that may have been when I first find it out, that Addie Bundren should be hiding anything she did ,who had tried to teach us that deceit was such that, in a world where it was, nothing else could be very bad or very important ,not even poverty. And at times I went in to go to bed she would be sitting in the dark by Jewel where he was asleep. And I knew that she was hating for herself for the deceit and hating Jewel because she had to love him that she had to act the deceit.”
In that statement there is a fact: Addie has an illegal child called Jewel and even there it is not written frankly. Addie cheats her husband but reader cannot learn the facts easily. It is a narrative style which puts reader into prison and makes him/her looking for an escape.
Another important point with As I Lay Dying is there is not any character development, action or a classical happy ending. In this story, centre is the dead woman Addie Bundren which is also interesting. Even though she is dead, it is explicitly written there, Addie could be the base of the story. In the book everything is same, while they carry the coffin they always do the same things, always trying to pass bridge it is as if there is a circle and they have to do it. According to my point of view, through this pattern Faulkner shows his reader the structure of life. Thanks to his structure he offers reader that there is always a pattern in life, all the time people lives the same things and there is a truth of nothingness in life. In family’s journey to Jefferson reader could grasp it in the things happening there. So what happens? Nothing..Anse find a woman again and it is already known same things will happen again.
I think the book is perfect in terms of structure though becoming difficult to understand. It is the tale of life. How many writers could tell the life in his book just in a perfect way? Faulkner is incredible not just because his understanding about life but because his way of telling life in its structure. That is the reality. In real life there is not always happy endings, character developments, etc as we are familiar. Life is a pattern and in Faulkner’s work As I Lay Dying it is told us incredibly. While telling the life his technique stream of consciousness gives a new way of understanding, a new taste to novel structure.
When I observe The Turn of The Screw I find another style. As I mention in the first paper we three different story tellers starting with an unknown narrator then Dougles and finally governess. The unnamed governess has her autobiographical tale, for the unknown narrator of uncertain gender writing the first section has transcribed it from an original manuscript which she wrote out for the benefit of Douglas.
Prologue is important in terms of structure, warming up reader to the story. So that reader could learn about governess and basically the story. After prologue it could be said tale turns into autobiography of governess. I think story’s narrative style is the simplified version of stream of consciousness-making the reader confused from the very beginning-.Governess starts with:
“I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little see-saw of the light throbs and the wrong.”
Here reader may feel she will tell something real and interesting as if she really live in a bad situation and for a certain time reader could feel what terrible children Miles and Flora are and how innocent governess is. Yet after a certain part reader could see how governess exaggerating things and that changes reader’s ideas toward governess. Yet governess’s style, in a way James’s, makes story interesting, in other word it does not bore reader as I analyze in As I Lay Dying. In a way James’s interesting ghost story and his way of telling is enjoyable as compared with Faulkner’s work. Towards the end of the story reader feels that these are really happening, there are ghost in that house and that situation makes story readable if reader does not feel that this governess is not trustable. I appreciate James’s telling story because governess’s unreliability is not explicitly shown. So what make her untreatable are her sentences throughout the book. In first pages, while strolling she thinks it would be “as charming as a story” to meet someone, then that unspecified person associated with male kind “I only asked he should know...” As could be seen there, she has thoughts about seeing a man, James wants reader to interpret and comment about that crazy woman. It is his style leaving sentences to reader’s interpretation. I think he is just a relaxed writer, I mean he is teasing with reader. From a serious point reader learn that governess is just mad and writing stories about ghosts. Telling the story from governess’s point of view affects its objectivity. First off all she does not give much information how children respond her, becoming as a reader of that story I feel they are happy because governess tells it just like that. According to my point of view she feels the disturbance that she gives to children but she does not want to see it so it affects her credibility in terms of reader, briefly her subjectivity does not suffice reading public.
Let’s how James compose ambiguous sentences. In a part of the story Miles says “I want to be with my own sorts”. Here as a reader I interpret two different meanings; one- Miles is a gay, two-Miles is bored with a population consisting of women and he wants to play with his friends. I think while doing that, James gives reader some clues that he can trace throughout the story because before that reader knows Miles is expelled from college. Reading the Turn of The Screw requires much attention. James’s style must be forcing reader’s brain as in As I Lay Dying .Even the end of The Turn of The Screw is ambiguous as if it is not the end at least it should not be. Reader cannot get his answers. While reading it, I personally feel that I will get my answers but after finishing I feel James awakens curiosity to make reader finish and becoming his style he again teases his reading public. Again I can say that The Turn of The Screw is not like traditional novel structure, reader does not know any Jane Eyre and a character development, and it is a tale ending with ambiguity.
In terms of structure The Turn of The Screw and As I Lay Dying are not so different but not so similar as well. In both books there is different telling of stories but Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is difficult to get for reader -being really boring-.However The Turn of The Screw leaves reader questions, which make reader to wonder, to be answered or commented. And all these make this book worth to reading. Yet it is not valid for Faulkner’s story because actually nothing is happening in the story. Though I appreciate Faulkner’s style as a literature student, just like critics in his time I would not want to read and criticize it. However, I find his style innovative, perfect and necessary for the literature. Beyond question, his style leads American Literature to a new dimension.
