Keywords

Whenever a religious person changes someone's mind on religion. The example here is Hightower taming Ballanbaugh's through violent conversion. JB

Any time the past is consonant with the present, or a tradition is passed on. For example, the Hampton's being Sheriffs is a historical continuity. JB

A moment in a character's story when something happens that changes the arc of his or her life. For example, when in Absalom! Thomas Sutpen is turned away from the front door of that Tidewater plantation. Or in The Mansion, when Houston tells Mink Snopes he still owes the one dollar "pound fee" (28). SR

Here conservatism is meant as a value and is politically agnostic. It is roughly being used as prudence, common sense, and tradition all wrapped up in one. JB

I added this to account for a Biblical allusion ("Benjamin child of mine old age") that seems to have several possible Old Testament sources, representing a kind of conflating of those sources. JBP

Refers to when a text draws attention to the relative smallness or confined nature of where a character resides - a "single room twelve feet square," for example. -JBP

We created this term to denote any instance in which the community operates as a social body, collectively self-organizing to think or do something. Sometimes, this may be simply believing an idea collectively and, at others, it may entail acting together as in the crowd at the horse auction of The Hamlet. JC and JJ