Darl as Pseudo-omniscient Narrator in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying

Abstract

Darl, the second son of the Bundren family, provides more narration than any other character in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying exhibiting the greatest amount of consciousness and the most abundant awareness throughout the novel. Darl’s clairvoyance, that is to say, ESP is still a highly controversial topic, but it may be justified by means of the first-person omniscient presentation. We have to rid ourselves of the assumption that an omniscience is possible only in the third-person narration. An omniscient viewpoint is generally known to be used only in the third-person narrative, but it is also possible in the first person. Oddly enough, Darl, as one of the first-person character-narrators, knows almost everything regarding other persons and things around him, but he does not notice any sign concerning his own fate. Disintegrating under the pressure of so many family catastrophes and failing to take measures to defend himself against any attack, Darl has no choice but to be forcibly taken to the state asylum. After all, Faulkner presents a narrative experiment with an amalgam blending an objective character with an omniscient narrator in Darl Bundren.