Among Faulkner's total body of works, As I Lay Dying stands as a companion piece to The Sound and the Fury, the novel published the year preceding the publication of As I Lay Dying. The earlier novel is a criticism and condemnation of the so-called "aristocracy" of the South; the latter, a criticism and condemnation of the backwoods hill people who, through their ignorance, deny any value to life. Other similarities between these two novels are readily noticeable. A mother who affects the destiny of her children, levels of awareness presented through startling techniques, and characters who advocate a nihilistic philosophy are seen in both novels. Darl's searching questions into the meaning of life strongly suggest the disturbed personality of Quentin Compson (the son in The Sound and the Fury), and in a vaguer sense, Benjy's idiocy is again reflected in Vardaman.
William Faulkner (1897-1962) was born in New Albany, Mississippi, but his family soon moved to Oxford, Mississippi. The action of almost all of his novels takes place in and around Oxford, which he renames Jefferson, Mississippi. Faulkner, therefore, was very familiar with the type of person presented through the characters of the Bundrens. Even though Faulkner is a contemporary American, he is already considered one of the world's greatest novelists. In 1949, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, the highest prize awarded to a writer.
