In the book As I Lay Dying Faulkner utilizes differing points of view, symbolic representations of fish and a rural Mississippi setting to portray the major themes of diverse people, handling loss, and independence. Throughout the novel, Faulkner shifts the point of view from one character to another to allow the reader to gain insight into the events that are occurring and the attitudes and opinions that the characters in As I Lay Dying have. When the Bundren family is trying to get Addie's coffin across the flooded river, Faulkner makes definite, clear shifts in the point of view. Darl is the first character in line to recollect this event and he addresses the audience by stating"they stand–trees, cane, vines–rootless, severed from the earth, spectral above a scene of immense yet circumscribed desolation filled with the voice of the waste and mournful water" (142). Next, Tull describes this exact event, "We could hear the water hissing on it like it was red hot. Like it was a straight iron bar stuck into the bottom and us holding the end of it, and the wagon lazing up and down" (155). By allowing each character to recount the events themselves, Faulkner does an effective job of allowing the reader to understand the character's feelings, attitudes, etcetera. Furthermore, Faulkner illustrates the different ways in which people think, act, and respond to episodes by displaying the way in which each character views an event such as Addie's death or the crossing of the flooded river. Therefore, because Faulkner allows the personality of each character's ideas to be expressed, he demonstrates his theme that all people are different and diverse, and it is their differences that make their opinions so interesting and unique.
             Faulkner also uses symbolic references to fish in the novel. Throughout the beginning of As I Lay Dying, Vardaman states, "My mother is a fish"...