The hour-by-hour, day-by-day organization of the novel suggests, in form as well as function, the nature of the repetitive and mundane days spent on the cruise ship. By grounding the repetitive activities of the characters in concrete temporal divisions, Faulkner gives structure to what might otherwise seem to be an endless stream of conversation and interaction between various combinations of the yacht's passengers.

This intentionally mundane structure also forces the boat and the preoccupations of the passengers (swimming, dancing, eating, etc.) to become a stage for the characters' primary function as "thinly veiled mouthpieces [that] function as rhetorical devices"[19] through which Faulkner is able to work through major issues that he struggled to understand in his own life. He does this by inhabiting the characters' various personas to address these themes either through their overt discussions or hidden thoughts. Regardless of how individual characters explore the themes, readers have access to them through Faulkner's omniscient third-person narration.

Though many views on the contemporary culture of the 1920s American south could be drawn from the endless cultural references in Faulkner's writing, two major themes manifest in the text and are explored both individually and in terms of their relation to one another. These are Faulkner's explorations of sex and sexuality and of the societal role of the artist.