God's Little Acre | Techniques

God's Little Acre Techniques

Caldwell was never particularly interested in the carefully plotted, highly structured tale, and his novels especially are often rambling, repetitive, and even open-ended. He is much more interested in the anecdote and the revealing moment than in the orderly development of the narrative. God's Little Acre is somewhat unusual in that it does contain the parallel, thematically-related stories of Ty Ty and Will, which are integrated in an admirably sophisticated manner. Nevertheless, Caldwell does tend to present the story in an episodic fashion, moving at times awkwardly to its conclusion.

Caldwell's strength is found in his dialogue. His practice is to give his major characters a "tag" line, an oath or expression which identifies them throughout the book. Ty Ty regularly swears to "pluperfect hell"; Pluto Swint insists, "And that's the truth"; Will Thompson is determined to "turn on the power." Caldwell recognizes that repetition can have a...
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