William Faulkner Rhetorical Devices

What is it that justifies a good writer? Is it a strong educational background? Exceptional use of diction? A creative and imaginative mindset? William Faulkner addresses this very universal concern in his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech and gives his insight on the qualities we possess as simply being a part of human nature and how it is these qualities that make a writer. On December 10, 1960, Faulkner delivered a very modest and intricate speech at a banquet in Stockholm, after receiving an award for his unique contributions to literature. Faulkner took this highlighted moment to enlighten any young writers who may have been listening and focused his attention on the tragedies that have fallen on everyday writing. Faulkner’s main premise was

Using rhetorical questioning Faulkner deliberately asks, “When will I be blown up?” (Faulkner). Through this rhetorical device he is able to pull the attention of all those who are listening by mentioning something that goes through everyone’s mind during the war time. By doing so, William Faulkner sets to light the problems with writing in the current quotidian lifestyle and where his generation had lost their human spirit. It is because of this universal fear that personal conflict has no longer brushed the conscious of these young writers. Conflict is the basis of history and Faulkner takes point to add that without this personal conflict there will be a void of good writing. “The young man and woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and sweat.” (Faulkner). He speaks of writing as if it is a physically exhausting thing to do which also connects to his working class audience. Faulkner is making a statement here that something is only worth doing if you physically contribute your all into it, both physically and emotionally. It is only when we accept our fear that we can begin to move forward and start building off of that fear and writing from the personal

”The old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed – love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.” (Faulkner). Without the knowledge of using these universal truths a writer is disabled with a curse and unable to fully fulfill writing from the heart. It is here on that Faulkner falls into ethos as he contemplates the immortality of man. William Faulkner falls heavily into analogies and a metaphor to structure just what he believes makes a man immortal. “It is easy enough to say that a man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even there will still be one more sound: that of his inexhaustible voice, still talking.” (Faulkner). Faulkner relies so heavy with this colorful metaphor to highlight the meat of his message; he is now reaching that pinnacle of the idea of what makes good writing: the ability to endure. That regardless of how we meet our ends, as human beings with imbedded voices and a soul we will continue on or better yet, we will prevail. How can mankind improve if it is not to work together? An isolated body cannot help advance the whole. It is here towards the end of his speech where Faulkner