SOURCE: "The Symbolic March," in The Achievement of William Styron, University of Georgia Press, 1975, pp. 122-33.

In the excerpt below, Malin discusses symbolism, characterization, and Styron's use of body imagery and contrast.

The opening paragraph of The Long March tells us much about the symbols, themes, and characters of the entire novelette. Styron begins with "noon," the hottest part of the day; the heat is as intense and extreme as the events—and the reactions to these events—he will eventually describe. (Even noon is intensified by the word blaze.) Then Styron introduces the human element: "eight dead boys are thrown apart among the poison ivy and the pine needles and loblolly saplings." The contrasts are vivid—the boys are dead, wasted, "strewn"; the noon burns with energy. Several questions leap to mind. How do men face extinction? What is the role of accident or design? Can death...