Beyond Foils: Cora and Vernon Tull in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying

In As I Lay Dying, the Bundrens’ neighbors encountered during the expedition participate in constructing the family drama based on an arduous odyssey. Faulkner wishes to create these outside narrators as vividly realistic characters who allow the reader to sympathize with them. Particularly Cora and Vernon Tull become fully independent figures who are autonomously responding to the Bundren world. Cora would exhibit her thoughts by means of superficial religious imagery, and Vernon would express himself in terms of dull, unemotional irony. This couple serves effectively to supplement the narrative with factual, background material and calm down its somber, fitful atmosphere. Their light-hearted monologues help add somewhat greater richness and brighter color to the otherwise grim story. If the novel eventually establishes the comic tone against the overall gloomy and apprehensive mood, standing out as a delightful family novel, rooted in community and brightened by a new light in humanity, it is thanks to the Tull couple's involvement in consciousness of community.