Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!: An Innovative Narrative Technique

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on what Miss Rosa heard as a
child and her brief personal experiences.
The narration of Absalom, Absalom!, can be considered a coded
activity. Faulkner creates the complex narration beginning at chapter 2.
It ironic that one of Faulkner's greatest novels is one in which the author
only appears as the teller of the story in one brief section; The details
of the hero's arrival, Thomas Sutpen, into Jefferson in chapter 2.
Although Faulkner sets the scene up in each section (The omniscient
narrator), most of the novel is delivered through a continual flow of talk
via the narrators.
Quentin appears to think the material for the first half of the
chapter 2. The narrator, throughout the novel, works as a historian. The
narrators seem to act like a model for readers. The narrator actually
teaches the reader how to participate in the historical recollection of
Absalom Absalom! The narrator also introduces the reader to things to come.
The complexity of the novel involves more than ...

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demands Henry �must have know what his father
said was true and could not deny it� (91). Compson make assumptions
based on his own conclusions at this time. The words �believe� and �
imagine� again reveal for the reader that he/she must make some of their
own speculations in order to ascertain some of Sutpen's historical facts.
Mr. Compson is creating his own reconstruction of Sutpen's history.
Again, Faulkner uses words like �believes� and �doubtless� to make us
understand Compson's explanation of the past. The reader is now compelled
to believe the narrator. Compson insists at the end of this passage that �
Henry must have been the one who seduced Judith� (99). It appears ...

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