As I Lay Dying Setting

Where It All Goes Down

Faulkner’s fictitious Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, the 1920s

Faulkner uses this fictitious county for many of his novels, including Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, and The Unvanquished. The details of Yoknapatawpha remain constant throughout these works: it is in Mississippi, just south of the Tallahatchie River and north of the Yoknapatawpha River. Jefferson is the bustling, central town of the county. Many believe that Faulkner based this fictional area on Lafayette County, where Faulkner grew up.