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AMST 246: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner

Lecture 15 - Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Part III. Professor Wai Chee Dimock concludes her discussion of As I Lay Dying with an analysis of its generic form. Using Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter to anchor her discussion of the American literary tradition, she argues that As I Lay Dying continually negotiates the comic and the tragic genres as we shift from one perspective to another: one character's comic gain is often another's tragic loss. She traces the losses and gains of Cash, Jewel, and Darl throughout the novel, showing how their new "balances" by the end reconstitute the Bundren family and draw lines of kinship around the "haves" and "have nots" among family members. (from oyc.yale.edu)

Lecture 15 - Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Part III

Time Lecture Chapters
[00:00:00] 1. As I Lay Dying and the American Tradition
[00:05:49] 2. Tragedy in The Scarlet Letter and As I Lay Dying
[00:12:32] 3. The Comic Dimension of the Fish
[00:18:45] 4. The Comic Economy of As I Lay Dying
[00:24:48] 5. Cash as a "Have Not"
[00:32:09] 6. Anse as a "Have"
[00:34:30] 7. Jewel's Broken Kinship with Animals
[00:39:49] 8. The Reconstitution of Kinship
[00:43:13] 9. Darl as a "Have Not"

References
Lecture 15 - Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. Part III
Instructor: Professor Wai Chee Dimock. Credit List [PDF]. Transcript [html]. Audio [mp3]. Download Video [mov].

Go to the Course Home or watch other lectures:

Lecture 01 - Introduction
Lecture 02 - Hemingway's In Our Time
Lecture 03 - Hemingway's In Our Time, Part II
Lecture 04 - Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
Lecture 05 - Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Part II
Lecture 06 - Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury
Lecture 07 - Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Part II
Lecture 08 - Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Part III
Lecture 09 - Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Part IV
Lecture 10 - Hemingway's To Have and Have Not
Lecture 11 - Hemingway's To Have and Have Not, Part II
Lecture 12 - Fitzgerald's Short Stories
Lecture 13 - Faulkner's As I Lay Dying
Lecture 14 - Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Part II
Lecture 15 - Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Part III
Lecture 16 - Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls
Lecture 17 - Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, Part II
Lecture 18 - Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, Part III
Lecture 19 - Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, Part IV
Lecture 20 - Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night
Lecture 21 - Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night, Part II
Lecture 22 - Faulkner's Light in August
Lecture 23 - Faulkner's Light in August, Part II
Lecture 24 - Faulkner's Light in August, Part III
Lecture 25 - Faulkner's Light in August, Part IV