'As I Lay Dying' – this immediately perplexing, and traditionally grammatically incorrect statement, serves as the title for one of Faulkner's most intriguing and innovative novels. The title, like the entirety of the novel, experiments with, and challenges traditional literary conventions in the way that the modernist literary movement of the 1930's sought to do. Faulkner, in 'As I Lay Dying' builds upon the ideas of other High Modernist writers, such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, making him one of the first great authors of modern literature.
             Through a series of technical innovations Faulkner creates, in 'As I Lay Dying', a world where objective truth does not exist, and reality is wholly dependent upon individual perception. Faulkner abandons the traditional device of an objective, and omniscient narrator, in favour of the fragmented subjective accounts of fifteen different protagonists. Faulkner sketches out the Bundrens' comic, yet tragic journey, through a series of successive interior monologues. The thoughts of each character are presented, uncensored and unashamedly, through the confessional and stream-of-consciousness technique that so distinctly characterizes this text. Each voice is notably unique; distinguishable by varying levels of articulation, coherence, and insight. By forsaking the objective narrator Faulkner is able to explore the psyches of each character with striking depth and authority, offering rare glimpses of psychological insight.
             Faulkner's narrative technique is heavily concerned with trying to overcome many of the inadequacies of language as a medium, and its traditionally transparent and representational function. He relies strongly upon the use of the visual, through a variety of presentations, such as multiple perspectives, fragmentation, montage and the use of collage. Through this the reader gains a somewhat confused and disj...