Unnamed Reader

Near the end of the novel's third prose section, the narrator looks up from the story he is telling to address the reader directly as "you" (198). He identifies the reader as "a stranger, an outlander say from the East or the North or the Far West" (198), and speculates that "you" may be college educated, or "perhaps even" have an graduate degree from "Harvard or Northwestern or Stanford" (205). This second person plays a significant if rhetorical role in the way the history of Yoknapatawpha is ultimately evoked.