"Mythogenesis in As I Lay Dying: A Comparative Exploration of Mythmakin" by Allison K. Groupp

Date of Award

Spring 2025

Language

English

Embargo Period

5-1-2025

Document Type

Master's Thesis

College/School/Department

Department of English

Program

English

First Advisor

Paul Stasi

Second Advisor

Mike Hill

Committee Members

Dr. Ineke Murakami

Keywords

Faulkner, Eastern Myths

Abstract

This thesis explores William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying through the lens of comparative mythology, arguing that the novel constructs a counter-myth that challenges dominant Western narratives. By engaging with non-Western mythological traditions—particularly Proto-Indo European, Hindu, and Indigenous cosmologies—the study reveals how Faulkner embeds symbolic structures that transcend Christian and Greco-Roman frameworks. Using semiology and structuralist frameworks developed by Ferdinand de Saussure, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Roland Barthes, the analysis deciphers a mythopoetic narrative that refocuses marginalized myths to destabilize binary oppositions such as Christian/Pagan, civilized/uncivilized, and male creation myths with female creation myths. Each chapter examines a different mythic layer: Chapter One interprets the Bundren family’s journey through world-wide Ursa Major myths and the axis mundi motif; Chapter Two identifies linguistic and thematic links to Hindu deities and cosmology; and Chapter Three recasts Anse Bundren as a trickster god, a figure known for mischievous and theft that ultimately disrupts binary oppositions. This thesis demonstrates that Faulkner’s novel serves not merely as a Southern gothic narrative but as a transgressive mythic text that reclaims suppressed cosmologies and reimagines freedom beyond dogmatic constraints. This thesis argues that Faulkner’s novel reanimates mythic patterns, ones that have been marginalized or labeled as Pagan or Heathen, as counter-myths that ultimately rupture the foundations of Western myth and hegemonic social narratives.

License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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