As I Lay Dying Versions of Reality Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Section.Paragraph) Every "section" is marked by a shift in narrative point of view.

Quote #4

[…] we hadn’t no more than passed Tull’s lane when Darl begun to laugh. Setting back there on the plank seat with Cash, with his dead ma lying in her coffin at his feet, laughing. How many times I told him it’s doing such things as that that makes folks talk about him, I don’t know. (26.1)

Darl is laughing at the utter absurdity of his family’s situation. In a way, As I Lay Dying ends on this sort of dark humor (with Anse picking up a new wife while he borrows the shovels to bury his first).

Quote #5

He is looking at me. He dont say nothing; just look at me with them queer eyes of hisn that makes folks talk. I always say it aint never been what he done so much or said or anything so much as how he looks at you. It’s like he had got inside of you, someway. Like somehow you was looking at yourself and your doings outen his eyes. (31.15)

Darl’s eyes make people feel uncomfortable because his powers of perception scare them.

Quote #6

And then I knew that I knew. I knew that as plain on that day as I knew about Dewey Dell on that day. (32.63)

See? Darl perceives that which other people miss. This frightens Dewey Dell and anyone else trying to keep a secret.