Mapping Unstable Selves: Existential Ontology and Narrative Multiplicity in As I Lay Dying

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 M.A. in English Language and Literature, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran.

2 Department of English Language and Literature, Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz, Iran.

Abstract

This article examines William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying through an integrated theoretical lens that reconceives focalization, stream of consciousness, and existential ontology as structurally interdependent mechanisms of narrative disintegration. Rejecting conventional thematic treatments, the study reframes these narrative techniques as philosophical agents that enact, rather than merely depict, the fragmentation of selfhood. Drawing on theories of narratology, the interiority models, and existential philosophy, the article argues that Faulkner’s use of narrative multiplicity produces unstable and recursive subjectivities. Through close readings of the Bundrens’ internal monologues, the article demonstrates how focalization destabilizes narrative authority, stream of consciousness dismantles cognitive coherence, and the novel’s form itself generates an existential crisis. The findings suggest that As I Lay Dying is not only a modernist text concerned with identity, but a philosophical artifact in which form functions as an ontological event. This approach contributes to Faulkner studies, narratological theory, and literary existentialism by offering a new model for reading narrative as an epistemological site of being and its disassembly. The conclusion suggests that fiction not only reflects but generates new ontological and epistemic modes of thinking.

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References

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History

  • Receive Date: 01 September 2025
  • Revise Date: 04 April 2026
  • Accept Date: 07 April 2026

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