Out of quiet thunderclap he would abrupt (man-horse-demon) upon a scene peaceful and decorous as a schoolprize water color, faint sulphur-reek still in hair clothes and beard, with grouped behind him his band of wild n*****s like beasts half tamed to walk upright like me, in attitudes wild and reposed, and manacled among them the French architect with his air grim, haggard, and tatter-ran. Immobile, bearded, and hand palm-uplifted the horseman sat; behind him the wild blacks and captive architect huddled quietly, carrying in bloodless paradox the shovels and picks and axes of peaceful conquest. Then in the long unamaze Quentin seemed to watch them overrun suddenly the hundred square miles of tranquil and astonished earth and drag house and formal gardens violently out of the soundless Nothing and clap them down like cards upon a table beneath the up-palm immobile and pontific, creating Sutpen's Hundred, the Be Sutpen's Hundred like the olden time Be Light. (Chapter 1)

Basic set up:

Here the narrator describes Thomas Sutpen, a white man who arrives in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, with a group of slaves. Sutpen's intention is to build a massive plantation.

The power dynamics that defined slavery and race in the South are front and center in this description of the making of a Southern plantation. Sutpen is on a horse, and behind him is his "band of wild n*****s like beasts half tamed to walk upright." Visually, Sutpen is way up there on his horse, and his slaves are way down there on the ground—they're like beasts who should be walking on all fours.

Slavery was based partly on the dehumanization of African Americans, and we can totally see that in action in this passage. The slaves are referred to—more than once—as "wild," which makes them seem like wild animals, less than human. The description is offensive because the racial hierarchies in the South under slavery were offensive: there's no way to make this stuff pretty.

The prose of this passage is violent. The sentences, for example, are long and unending (get a load of that last sentence!). The words are jarring, too: what is a "long unamaze," for instance? Or how does a man "abrupt" upon a scene?

The language here is violent because slavery was violent. Sutpen and his slaves, for example, "overrun suddenly the hundred square miles of tranquil and astonished earth and drag house and formal gardens violently out of the soundless Nothing." This is an assault on the earth, and it's only possible because human beings are being assaulted into making it happen.