A theme is a fundamental and often universal idea or ideas explored in a literary work. In the novel As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, many themes occur. One theme includes sanity and it states that there is a thin line between sanity and insanity. Duty is also discussed; the duty of the children and Addie's husband drove them to cart her body to Jefferson. The final theme in the novel is that death, while being inescapable, affects individuals differently. The many themes of Faulkner's book come together, bringing the Bundrens' story to life.

Sanity is one of the main themes of the book. A person's sanity depends on how the person's community views the mind of a human being and what they feel should be "normal." It isn't the person's actual state of mind, it's more the fact that someone believes there is something odd about...