Comedy Found in All the Wrong Places

Black comedy is comedy that takes people, places, and situations and makes fun of them or is satirical about them. We see William Faulkner use black humor in his book As I Lay Dying. By adding this touch of comedy to his book Faulkner is able to add humor to a very boring book and keep the book moving

Faulkner uses black humor in many parts of the book. Cash is very tedious when it comes to working on his mother's coffin. He makes sure every little thing is perfect and lists everything he has done, "The water will have to seep into it on a slant. Water moves easiest up and down or straight across. [...] So I made it on the bevel" (Faulkner pg. 83). Cash spends a great amount of time sanding all the rough edges and measuring every angle, only to have it ruined first by Vardaman. Vardaman realizes that Cash has nailed the coffin shut, so now Vardaman thinks that his mother can't breathe and thinks he helps her out by drilling holes into the coffin as described by Vardaman, "It was not her because it was laying right yonder in the dirt. And now it's all chopped up. I chopped it up" (Faulkner pg. 66). The coffin continues to be tormented on the trip to Jefferson, Addie's final resting place. The Bundren family gets to the river and Anse realizes he has forgotten the shovels to burry Addie. If one were going to burry someone, especially there wife, one would think they would remember the essential things sucks as a shovel.