In Absalom, Absalom! the act of narration blurs the individuality of the characters. Quentin and Shreve lose their sense of self as they tell the story of the Sutpens. They become the people whose story they tell, especially Bon and Henry. The act of storytelling has a way of moving characters out of individuality and into a state of fluidity that allows storytellers to recreate the story in a way that changes it from the original and gives it a newly invented life. Nature telling stories is inspiring for Quentin. He thinks so. Maybe we are both fathers. Maybe nothing ever happens once and it's over, maybe it never happens once... Yes, we are both Father. Or maybe my father and I are both Shreve, maybe it took my father and me to create Shreve or Shreve and I both to create our father or maybe Thomas Sutpen to create all of us. (210)Quentin thinks that perhaps our creations, including the stories we tell, are not separate but, perhaps, all the tellings of a story are needed to create it. As he is told and as he tells Sutpen's story, he is creating Sutpen even though Sutpen already was. Even the fusion of selves happens again, as when he says: “we are both father”. They are all each other and themselves at the same time. It takes their knowing each other for them to be who they are. Without Quentin telling Shreve about his father, then Mr. Compson wouldn't exist for Shreve, so it takes "Shreve and [Quentin] both to create Father." Oral tradition is necessary to keep the past and legacy of the Sutpen family alive. The four boys, Quentin, Shreve, Henry and Bon, become mirrors of each other. They are referred to collectively, only as numbers and not by their names. In some places they come together to be… the center of the paper… and other qualities to define her as a person, but for the purposes of the story, she just has to be “the octoroon” ” to carry forward the racial connotation of the motif so Sutpen abandoned her and Bon. Recalling the fluidity of Quentin and Shreve's self, they are called "two" and "four" when including Bon and Henry, and thus they too have lost their names and are just their numbers. The breaking down of who they are into pieces is similar to the breaking down of the Sutpens into mere shadows of themselves. They are no longer whole, but only images, projected by those who tell them, which do not constitute a true self. The act of storytelling, in Absalom, Absalom!, creates as much as it destroys. While the narrative brings the Sutpens, particularly Thomas, to life, it also breaks down what the self is for Quentin and Henry, as well as removing individuality from others..