· Anecdote
Each section of Faulkner’s story appears to be their own individual anecdotes. Each story tells the incidents of a single day. What is original about the use of these stories is that each has other short anecdotes of the past included in each section to follow the writing style of Faulkner.
· Colloquialism
“’Shut up that moaning.’ Luster said. “I can’t make them come if they aint coming, can I? If you don’t hush up, mammy aint going to have no birthday for you’” (Faulkner 4).
“Dis here ti’ aint got no air a-tall in hit” (Faulkner 305).
· Simple Sentences
“He laced my shoes and put my cap on and we went out. There was a light in the hall. Across the hall we could hear mother” (Faulkner 34).
· Pedantic
“I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather excrutianting-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your human experience” (Faulkner 76).
· Imagery
“When we ran out of the trees I could see the twilight again, that quality of light as if time really had stopped for a while, with the sun hanging just under the horizon, and then we passed the marquee where the old man had been eating out of the sack, and the road going under twilight, into twilight and the sense of water peaceful and swift beyond” (Faulkner 169).
Faulkner’s use of rhetorical strategies seems to vary greatly throughout the cycles of the characters anecdotes. The use of colloquialism is primarily incorporated in dialogue as to give the characters a realistic voice, as well as show a contrast between the characters. Simple and concise sentences are used during the narrations of Benjy’s in order to also give realism to mentally disabled man’s train of thought. Faulkner juxtaposes Benjy’s thinking with Quentin’s pedantic narration showing the stark contrast in the disabled man and his Harvard attendee brother. Faulkner also incorporates a large amount of imagery through the characters as to add to the anecdotes and add to the story’s realism.
An anecdote within an anecdote is also called a frame device. The varying rhetorical strategies appear to be Faulkner's main mode of characterising the narrators. I think of the axiom "you are your actions," and find that this adage doesn't apply to Faulkner's characters, as their substance lies in their thoughts and how they percieve the world. This also reminds me of the belief that negative or positive thoughts can actually manifest themselves. It's the classic which came first, the chicken or the egg scenario. Do their tragedies create them, or do they create their tragedies?
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