The Reivers Literary Elements

The Reivers Literary Elements

Genre

picaresque novel

Setting and Context

fictional county in Mississippi called Yoknapatawpha County, beginning of the 20th century

Narrator and Point of View

Narrator: Lucius Priest
POV: first person

Tone and Mood

Tone: questioning
Mood: adventurous

Protagonist and Antagonist

Protagonist: Lucius Priest, Antagonist: knowledge that makes Lucius lose his innocence

Major Conflict

Boon Hogganbeck uses the opportunity of Lucius's family being away for the funeral to "borrow" Lucius's grandfather's car to see a prostitute in Memphis .

Climax

Lucius wins a horse race riding the horse Lightning, which Ned traded for his grandfather's car, and sees his grandfather with the car.

Foreshadowing

"Because what better sign than a black eye or a cut mouf can a woman want from a man that he got her on his mind?"

Ned foreshadows that Boon and Miss Corrie will be together at the end.

Understatement

"You see? Grandfather bought the automobile not as a defiance of Colonel Sartoris's decree. It was simply a calm and deliberately considered abrogation of it, even if only by weekly token."

Allusions

"I realised, felt suddenly that same exultant fever-flash which Faustus himself must have experienced: that of we two doomed and irrevocable, I was the leader, I was the boss, the master."

Imagery

Hell Creek - image of a swamp-like road through which a car is unable to pass on it's own.

Paradox

N/A

Parallelism

"...and another crowd where another deputy was holding Ludus about twenty feet away and still in the frozen attitude of running or frozen in the attitude of running or in the attitude of frozen running..."

Metonymy and Synecdoche

machine age

Personification

"But a mule is a gentleman too, and when you act courteous and respectful at him without trying to buy him or scare him, he'll act courteous and respectful back at you--as long as you don't overstep him."

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