William Faulkner does not always indict Christianity. For example, in the final section of The Sound and the Fury, Dilsey draws solace and comfort from the church service. The service functions pragmatically to transition Dilsey into her changing reality. At other times, Faulkner does subject Christianity to scathing ridicule. This paper explores how Faulkner employs the minor character Whitfield in As I Lay Dying to belittle simplistic Christianity. Faulkner accomplishes this in three ways: exposing the potential for hypocrisy within simplistic Christianity, portraying it as a humorous fairy-tale reality, and demonstrating its inadequacy to cope with both spiritual sin and physical death.
Faulkner exposes the potential for hypocrisy within Christianity. The obvious example is Reverend Whitfield. His hypocrisy lies not so much in the sin of having sex with Addie Bundren but in clinging to his image of himself as a holy man. Whitfield claims repentance: "all that night I wrestled with Satan, and I emerged victorious. I woke to the enormity of my sin" (177). Whitfield feels that God leads him to confess the adultery to Anse. Praying en route to the Bundren house, Whitfield divulges his true motive: "let me not be too late; let not the tale of mine and her transgression come from her lips instead of mine" (178). Whitfield's impetus seems not to be true repentance but, rather, fear of humiliation. Addie's honesty stands in sharp contrast: "the sin the more utter and terrible because he was the instrument ordained by God" (174). She even owns up to reality enough to revel in her sin: "I would think of the sin as garments which we would remove in order to shape and coerce the terrible blood to the forlorn echo of the dead world in the high air . . . then I would lie with Anse again" (175). Addie's perspective highlights how much more important it is for Whitfield to hypocritically maintain a tidy spirituality than to accept responsibility for reality.