Animal Diction In Psycho
For example, Faulkner describes Abner, the father, as presenting the characteristics of “wolf-like independence” with “latent ravening ferocity”(271). This specific choice of animalizing Abner as a ‘lone wolf’ allows the reader to assume his selfishness and his willingness to cast aside the needs of his family to burn barns. Faulkner’s ability to illustrate Abner as a barbaric persona continues to hint towards his father’s individual quest to torch barns and rebel against the wealthier individuals. Similarly, Carver tells narrator’s wife’s love story as a child where she “was in love with the guy, and he was in love with her, etc”(102). By using this “etc” in the narrator’s voice, Carver leads the audience to believe that the narrator feels uncomfortable outlining a truly romantic story because their pure, fairy-tale love emasculates him. This colloquial shortening of his wife’s life reveals the narrator to be upset by love outside of his own. Moreover, during an intensely emotional scene where Abner recently “struck [his son] with the flat of his hand”, Faulkner describes the strike like one to strike “the two mules at the store…[or] to kill a horse fly”(272). The degrading diction that the son is merely a an unimportant mule to the father forces the reader to despise Abner as a solipsistic man who fails to contain an ounce of compassion for the horrid experience he, alone, brought upon his family. Faulkner uses these comparisons to animals to belittle Sarty and to bestialize Abner in hopes of swaying the reader towards vilifying the father. Sarty, as the mule, carries the burdening weight of the abusive father and their possessions from one farm to the next. Both these authors utilize specific diction to add depth to characters: Abner’s brutal selfishness towards fulfilling his own vindictive needs and, in Cathedral, the