- Both novels use a unique narrative style with multiple shifting perspectives to tell their stories. As I Lay Dying uses 15 different narrators while For Whom the Bell Tolls has 3.
- They both focus on communities banding together during difficult times - a family transporting a body in As I Lay Dying and a group of guerrillas in the Spanish Civil War in For Whom the Bell Tolls.
- The novels examine themes of life, death, loss, and the human experience through the lens of their characters' perspectives.