Point of View

In many instances, the point of view in each of these 13 stories is that of one of the characters in the narrative. There is rarely an omniscient authorial point of view, which is one reason the stories develop verisimilitude and reach deep into the reader's perceptions and emotions. The events that unfold in each story have the freshness and vitality of someone speaking without pretense from their own experience.

Instead of an absent narrator describing how an enraged tenant farmer burns down the barn to get even with the land owner, Faulkner tells the story from the point of view of the farmer's son, who helps his father ignite the fire although he doesn't understand the reasons. The overall tone is ironic, as unlikely events fit together in a kind of surprising outcome that seems, in each story, to be very life-like. Individual quirks and eccentricities...