Getting Ready to Stay Dead: Rites of Passage in William Faulkner's Novels

Abstract

This article uses concepts from anthropology to explore the representation of rites of passage as crucial episodes in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930), The Sound and the Fury (1929), and Light in August (1932). Rites of passage, as conceptualized by anthropologists, are transformative and integrative social forces. Death rites, in particular, function as cultural systems of signification that operate both within and beyond restrictions of temporality and historicity. These complex cultural dynamics inform the death episodes discussed in this article: Addie Bundren's nine-day funeral journey, Quentin Compson's last day and suicide and the ritual murder of Joe Christmas. The article argues that Faulkner dramatizes liminal mortuary rites in these major works not only as expressions of cultural tradition and social hierarchical structures, but also, and perhaps more importantly, as a system of signification that reveals societal injustice while also invoking a mythical realm that transcends cultural ideologies.