In its broadest terms, the structure of As I Lay Dying revolves around the preparations for and the actual journey from the Bundren farm to a town forty miles away in order to bury Addie Bundren. During the journey, several difficulties are encountered. So, in one sense, the novel has a linear structure based upon the movement of the funeral procession traversing the forty miles from the Bundren farm to Jefferson. But the novel is also structured in such a way that the author has virtually removed himself from the story. He allows his characters to tell their own story. Accordingly, each of the fifty-nine sections is narrated by some character in the novel. Even though there are several important narrators who are not Bundrens, the largest number of the sections is presented by one or the other of the Bundrens.
By using a different narrator for each section, Faulkner accomplishes many things. First, he allows or forces the reader to participate in the story. Since Faulkner has removed himself from the story, that is, since he doesn't use a straight narrative technique to explain certain aspects, we must enter more directly into the story and determine for ourselves the exact nature of each relationship or the significance of any particular event.
Second, the technique allows us to know the inner thoughts of all the characters. We see into the mind of each character directly and must analyze what we find there. Faulkner, as author, has not told us anything about the characters — he has simply presented them and we must examine their inner thoughts and determine for ourselves what types of characters they are.
