Recapitulation and Alteration in Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy

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1975 Recapitulation and Alteration in Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy Elizabeth Anne Shapland Eastern Illinois University This research is a product of the graduate program in English at Eastern Illinois University. Find out more about the program.

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RECAPITULATION AND ALTERATION

IN FAULKNER 'S SNOPES TRILOGY (TITLE)

ELIZABETH ANNE SHAPLAND

THESIS

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Date Author

pdm Nearly all of William Faul kner 's novels include des- criptions of characters and events which have previo usly appeared in hi s novels and short stories. The recurrenc e of this material is the result of Faulkner' s effort to create a fictional county complete wi th at least six generations of citizens . In writing hi s Yoknapatawpha fiction, Faul kner created not just the stori es of the present , but also those of the many decades of the past ; he gave the county its own folklore and memories. In his works , as in life , the good stories are told and retold many times, and contemporary characters comment on each other and remember past generations of local folk. Al so as in life, the memories are no t static but change with each retelling , reflecting the inter ests and often the opinions of the present narrator. For the author, the already-created stories become a "part of the given" as Steven Marcus describes it , 1 as equally valid a potential source for future stories as any other experi enc e or imagination. An author may wi sh to re-use a small detail or incorporate an entire short story into a novel , wi th or without changes; Faul kner ran the whole gamut in hi s re-use of material .

lsteven Marcus , "Snopes Revi sited, " in William Faulkner: Three Decades of Criticism, eds . Frederick J. Hoffman and Olga W. Vickery ( New York : Harcourt , Brace & World, Inc., 1963), p. J88.

1 2

T:-.:::: re-use of mat erial is both technique and theme, fo r Faulk�9r wanted to create a mythol ogy , ongoi ng and al ive wi�� the ;�ople of the co unty , as important as and frequent - ly indisti�gui shable fro m the hi story of the county . Many cri-:ics ha7e sp oken of Faul kner 's work in general as following the pa�t ern o f anci ent my thol ogi es and literature in whi ch variations result from the vari ety of narrators and fro m the 2 passage of time. Dorothy Tuck notes that the stories may lose accuracy in terms of fact but gain ac c uracy in "p sycho lo gical reali ty,"3 a statement whi ch evokes Faul kner 's own no te to The Mansi on , in which he attributed discrepanc ies amo ng hi s joo ks to hi s getting to know the charact ers better the more he writes and lives with them . Joseph J. Arpad con cludes that the sub ject of Faul kner 's Snopes Trilogy is legend and the life th.at creates the legend , and that the trilo gy can be defi ned as a legendary novel , with the legend of Fl em Snopes of central importanc e along wi th the legend maki ng process .4

As Arpad' s article on the Snopes Trilogy indicates,

Trilogy , The Haml et ( 9 0) , the books of Faul kner's Snop es 1 4

2 His Edward M. Hol mes , Faul kner 's Twi ce-T ol d Tales: - Re- use of �i s Material (T he Hague: Mouton &--CO:- , 1966) , P: 98; Marcus,-p.-"28'8; Do rothy Tuc k, Crowell's Handboo k of Faul kner , advi sory ed. Lewi s Leary (New Yo rk: Thomas Y. Cro well Com pany, 1964) , p. 87.

JTuc k, p. 87 .

4Jo seph J . Arpad , "William Faul kner 's Legendary No vels: The Snopes Tri logy," Missi ssippi Quarterly 22 (Summer 1969): 215, 219 . 3

The Town (1957), and The Mansi on (1959), are similar to hi s ot her novel s in the re-use of material. In fact, many pre viousl y published short stories have been reworked for inclu 5 si on in these works . But being a trilogy , these books par take of anot her special ki nd of re-use of material more appropriately termed recapitulation. This term refers to the more specific retelling of stories and details about charac ters whi ch oc curs wi thin the trilogy as a whole, help ing to tie the books together, but also to make eac h under standable by itsel f: sp ecifically, the recapitulation in

The Town of events that oc curred in The Haml et , and in The

Mansi on of ev ents from both The Town and The Haml et , as well as recapitulation in each book of information previously pre sented wi thin that book . 6 Studies of Faulkner 's writing of the trilogy suggest that he did not make a consc i ous effort to retell detail s from the earlier books in order to make the sec ond and third books readable alone , but , instead , the recapitulation was as natural a part of his writing as any ot her retelling. Thus the separation of this type of re telling from other repeated details stemming from Faulkner's

5Holmes in Faul kner's Twic e-Told Tal es explores in detail the differenc es between the short stories "Spotted Horses ," "The Hound ," "Barn Burni ng," "Li zards in Jamshyd's Courtyard ," "Fool about a Horse, " "C entaur in Brass, " "Mul e in the Yard ," "T he Wai fs, " and "By The People" and the simi lar sec tions in the Snopes Trilogy. His examination of the changed rhet ori c, diction, and tone generated by di fferent narrators and contexts is extremely interesting.

6An appendix followi ng lists al l of this insi de rec apitulation and the original sourc es wi thin the trilogy . 4 other wo rks is so mewhat artificial . Yet this distinction may suggest itself to a reader who has read only the trilogy and is not familiar wi th the whol e of Faulkner 's Yoknapa tawpha series . Such a reader might well find a passing reference to Bayard Sartoris, or Ike Mc caslin, or some other

Yo knapatawp ha character more co nfus ing and unnatural than the more integrated insi de recapitulation.?

An important aspect of all of Faul kner 's re-use of mat er ial is the al teration which occurs in the subsequent ap pearance of the material . The fact that there is al most always at least minor al terat i on--that it is not just di rect repetition--i s one of the major justifications cr itics offer for Faul kner 's use of this wri ting techni que. Faul kner showed in hi s fiction, especially in a work like Absalom,

Absalom!, that point of view is usually the most important determi ner of a story , more important than the 'fac ts' of the matter. With four different narrators , the novel will present fo ur different , yet basi cally similar , stories; this is where re-use of material comes into the work. Faul kner's co nvi ction of the separatenes s and vali dity of each narrator's story is reveal ed in hi s description of the writing of The

Sound and the� whi ch has its separate narrators because, each time, he was try ing to wri te the st ory and fel t he had fai led , so he began agai n from a different viewpoi nt.

?peter Swi ggart , The Art of Faul kner 's Novel s (Austin, Texas : University of Texas, 1962) , P. 196. Swiggart fi nds the co unty references di stracting . 5

Finally, the sto ri es together manage to tell the story he

initially envi si oned , but eac h alone remai ns inade quate. 8

Faul kner's comments at the Universi ty of Virginia on hi s use of multiple narrators in The Town present a philosophy which can be applied to many of hi s other works al so :

It [t he tec hni qu� was used deliberately to look at the objec t from three points of view. Just as when you ex ami ne a mo nument you wi ll wal k around it, you are no t satisfi ed to look at it from just one si de. Al so , it was to look at it from three different mentalities . . .. That seemed to me to give a more compl ete picture of the sp ecific incidents as they occurred if they could be (v i ewe cf} three times. 9

The variety of narrators in The Town and The Mansion al one suggests that the recapitulation in these books woul d involve a large am ount of al teration from the origi nal source' s narrati on. Di sc repanc ies in stories retold in this store-porch manner by characters who , without doubt , indulge

in embellishment to make their tale a little taller than it was when they heard it only strengthen the realism of 0 Faulkner' s novel s. 1 But certai n characteristics of these

8Jean Stei n, "William Faulkner: An Interview, " in William Faul kner: Three Dec ades of Criticism, eds. Frederi ck J. Hoffman and Ol ga W. Vi c kery (New Yo rk: Harcourt , Brac e & World, Inc. , 1963), pp. 73- 74. Al so in Writers at Work: The Pari s Review Interviews, ed . Malcolm Cowl ey (New York: Vi ki ng Press , Compass Books edition, 1959) and in the Pari s Review, Sp ring, 1956 , pp. 28-52. 9 Frederick L. Gwynn and Joseph L. Blotner , eds. Faulkner in the Universit� Class Co nferenc es at the Univer si ty of Vi r inia 1957- 195 (New York: Random House , Vi ntage Books, 1965f , pp. 139- 140. 0 1 warren Bec k, Man in Motion: Faul kner 's Trilogy (Madison: University of Wi sconsin Press , 1961), p. 22: Mark Leaf , "Wil liam Faul kner 's Sno pes Tril ogy: The So uth Ev olves, " in The Fi fti es: Fiction, Po etry, and Drama , ed . Warren Frenc h (Deland , Fl a .: Ev ergreen-Edwards , '""1970) , p. 54. 6 narrators increase the push toward change. Gavin St evens,

V. K. Ratliff, and Charles Mal li son (C hi ck) are all person al ly involved in the ev ents of the trilogy. Subsequently, they fr equently combine their opinion of a character with their st ory , al t ering at the least the emphasis of the story.

They are concerned not only with what happened but with why it happened , which frequently leads to sp eculation. Ratliff at one poi nt admi ts to having to "surmi se from the fact s in evi dence," and further, "to presume on a little more than jest evi dence, '° in other words, imagination based on shared backgrounds.11 They al so indul ge in frequent S·peculat ion ab out what mi ght have happened , because they are oft en not wel l-informed . 12 Characters often relat e the story of an event which they did not wi tness but only heard ab out from someone el se (w ho al so may have heard it from a third party) .

Chi ck is the most guilty of this sec ond- or third-ha nd in for mation because so many of the events in the trilogy oc curred before he was born. Both Gavin and Chick must rely on

Ratliff' s narrati on of any ev ents which oc curred in Fr ench man's Bend . In The Town, there are only thirty pages of direct narrati on by Ratli ff (eight percent of the sections) , 13

11wi lliam Faulkner, The Mansi on (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1965)-;-pp. 138-139.

12Lewis Leary, Wi lli am Faulkner of Yoknapata ha County (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1973}, pp. 15��155 .

13Hol mes, p. 4o; Michael Millgate, The Achi evement of William Faulkner (New York: Random House, I9b6; Vi ntage Books, 1971)' p. 237. 7 but Chick' s narration is often just a rewordi ng of Ratliff' s versi on wi th phrases such as "ac cording to Ratli ff" or "a s

Ratliff put it" mixed in. 14 In thi s way , Ratliff' s versi ons of how things happened appear more in the novel than tho se official thirty pages woul d suggest.

Arpad discusses the narrators' unreliability, point- ing out that the interpretations of a person or event , whi ch are often co ntradictory , are much more pervasive in the novels than any fac tual information which the reader could co nsi der defini tive . Ratli ff and Gavin disc redit each other ,

Ratliff' s faul t being hi s love of the tall tale , Gavin' s bei ng hi s intellectualizing of every situation. Chick discredits himself as a narrator by admitting how much he was brainwashed into thi nki ng about Snopesism,15 so much so that

Ratliff' s and Gavi n' s memories fill in where hi s own is not so accurate:

So I still dont know how much I saw and remembered and how much was compelled onto or into me from Uncle Gavin, being, as Ratliff put it, as I had sp ent the fi rst el even or twelve years of my existence in the middle of Uncl e Gavin, thinki ng what he thought and seeing what he saw . 16

Even to discuss hi s lack of original memory, Chick must use

Ratliff' s words. Again, he credits Ratliff's and Gavin' s narrations :

14 Holmes, p. 4o . Hol mes no tes that this turning-over- to-Ratliff occurs parti cularl y when Faul kner is incorpo rating previously published short st ories into The Town. 5 l Arpad , pp . 216-218 . 16 Faul kne r, Mansion, p. 211 . 8

He didn't know whether he actually reme mbered Li nda 's mo ther as his uncle and Ra tliff obviously did, or not. But he had had to listen to both of them often en ough and long enough to know that he surely di know all � that they remembered, Ratliff especially. 7

He also discredits himself by admitting that he just doe sn't

know some thi ngs: "Though I wasn't present to remember exactly

what the sequence was" and "this may even be Ratliff; I dont

remember now. 1118 Chick tries to be a fac tual , ob jec tive

presenter of information, but since he seldom has fi rst-hand

information, his versi ons cannot be trusted.

The Town has no narration except that of Gavi n, Chick,

and Ratliff. But third-person narrati on appears in the other

two books. Generally , a reader will assume that the third-

perso n narration presents the fac ts, the established authori

tative viewpoi nt , but thi s assumption does not agree with

Faulkner's works . As Arpad poi nts out , the authorial narra-

tor is reluctant to pr esent factual information which would

help the reader understand Flem and Snope sism and tends to

present personal impressi ons as muc h as the other narrators.

Di alo gue between characters is pr esented by this narrator as

an evasi on from factual statement so that , on the whole, the

authorial narrator contributes to the lack of reli able narra

tion rather than clearing up as might be expected . 19 The

!?Faulkner , Mansion, p. 359 . 18 Faul kner, Mansio n, p. 195 , p. 211 .

l9Arpad , pp . 218-219 , 223. On page 225 Arpad argues that the character-like presenc e of the authorial narrator can be misleading to the careless reader who expects defini tive fact . The voice can co ntradict other narrators with seemi �g authority yet is actually unreliable and cannot be contradicted in turn by the narrators because the authorial narrator does no t exist in the plot. 9 th ird-person narration of the last section of The Mansion,

"Fl em," particularly stands out as a departure from the usu al uninvo lved nar ra tor. For one thing, a large part of this narratioR records Gavin's and Chick's thoughts, and the reader must keep in mind that the information is therefore just as unreliable and opini onated as if told in the first-person by either of these characters . In several places the third person narrator displays a definite voice and (charac ter-like) attitude . Sp eaking of Cl arence Snopes, he says "Now he had 20 it made , as Charles's generation would say , 11 which suggests that the narrator feels out of Charles's generation . Two passages show a curious detachment on the part of the narra tor primarily because of their position near the end of The

Mansion: "his uncle's special crony , the sewing machine agent and rural bucolic grass-roots philosopher and Cincin natus , V. K. Ratliff" and a parenthetical explanation of who Maggi e is when Meli sandre mentions her in conversation 2 1 wi th Gavin. Only onc e does this narrator display the con ventional external knowledge of an authorial narrator when he presents the information about Mink's younger daughter's career about which nei ther Mink nor anyone in Jefferson 22 knows . Michael Millgate argues that Faulkner cho se third person narration for thi s last section of the trilogy because

2° Faulkner , Mansi on, P• JOJ. 21 Faulkner, Mansion , p. J56, p. J8J. 22 Faulkner, Mansion, P• 290 . 10

he want ed to be unambiguous , but it remai ns debatable whether or not the narrator manages to present a definitive, unambigu 2 ous ending. 3

So for all these reasons, a large amount of alteration oc curs in the recapitulation in the trilo gy, and it is not insigni fi cant , nor does it mi slead the reader concerni ng the

mai n issue of Snopesism as some readers may think. For the al terat ion exposes the inner mind of the narrators; the way one narrator chooses to treat a certain event or person

"pl aces" hi m, 24 characterize s him even when the action doesn' t involve hi m at all. Perc eption of this characterizati on lets the reader see that Faulkner does not want the various con tradi ctory stories sorted out and synthe sized into one view. 25

Accepting this, the critical reader can view the work from two different perspectives. The discrepancies themselves can

be taken as the sub ject of the book--the legend created, bal

anc ed by the feeling of real life inherent in narrators who

expose themse lves so compl etely.26 With this attitude , the

questions about Snopesism as seen in Flem Snopes remain cen

tral in the novel s. Or the narrators can be viewed as the

main charac ters of the last two books, Snopesism in its physi

cal mani festations bei ng the prime theme o f The Haml et and a

23 24 Millgate, pp . 247-248 . Leaf, p. 5J. 25 Arpad, p. 225 . 2 6Arpad, pp . 219-221. Arpad further argues that The Town is mo st suc c essful as legendary novel because the ab sence of any authori al narration al lows the proper balance of unc ertai nty to be maintained between legend and life. 11 si gni fi cant mi nor theme in the last two works , but the pri me intere st of The Town and The Mansion being the effec t of

Snopesi sm on charac ters suc h as Gavin, v. K. , and Chic k.

This later attitude gives a broad scope to the trilogy, for it is seen then as dealing with the part of human nature

Faulkner manifested as_, Snopesism in both its narrow , speci fi c sense and in its more abstract sense, the effec t on the vari ety of people who experie nce it around them . Arpad's view deal s with Snopesis� more as legend than as a real part of human nature, yet gives the novel the added sc op e of bei ng a close presentation of the lege nd-making proc ess (as well as reveal ing realistic characters such as Gavin) .

With eithe r vi ew, the alterations are si gni fi cant and reveal the narrators as characters as well as the worl d they live in, both private and publ ic . Several of the instanc es of rec apitulation within the trilogy show V. K. Ratliff as a strong lover of the embell ished, taller tall tale. In The

Hamlet, it doesn' t take long at all for Ratliff to begin com- me nti ng on and exaggerating the inc ide nt of Ec k' s horse running through Mrs . Littl ejohn' s house . On hi s way out of the house to go get Will Varner to attend to the injured Henry

Armstid: Ratliff say s "'He went through that house qui ck ..

He must have found another woman at home. 11127 Then by the second morni ng after the stampede, he is already the ce nter of attention telling of his enc ounter with the wild horse:

2 7William Faulkner , The Hamlet (New York: Random House, Vintage Books , 1940):-p. 310. 12

"May be there wasn't but one of them things in Mrs Littlejohn' s house that night , like Ec k says. But it was the biggest drove of just one horse I ever seen. It was in my room and it was on the front porch and I coul d hear Mr s Li ttlejohn hi tting it over the head with that washboard in the backyard all at the same

time .••.if he saw just half as many of me as I saw of him, he was sholy surrounded."28

His veri fying words accompanying obvious exaggeration, "to

,11 29 my certain knowl edge," "Yes, sir, •.• are the mark of an accomplished storyteller . And when Ratliff retells the story of the horses to Gavin in The Town, he generates a frustrating quandary for Ec k Sno pe s:

"I rec kon the hardest instantaneous decision Ec k ever had to make in his life was to decide which one of them horses to chase: the one the Texas man give him , which represented the most net profi t if he caught it, or the one that he already had fi ve or six dollars of hi s own money invested in; that is, was a hundred-plus percent of a free horse worth more than just a hundred percent of. a six- dollar horse? That is, jest how fa r can you risk losing a horse that no matter what you get for him you will still have to subtract six dollars J from it, to je st catch one that wi ll be all net profi t?" O

Ratliff cannot just tell the story but must let hi s mind range over all the consequenc es and potentialities of the ev ent, and reveali ngly, the situation he imagines deals with financ e, his prime preoccupation. While Ratliff usually seem s taciturn in compari son to someone like Gavin, he also loves to interpret and reinterpret certai n incidents, usually to derive humor from them rather than to conti nually probe

8 2 Faulkner , Haml et, p. J14. 29 Faul kner, Haml et , p. J14.

JOWilliam Faul kner , The Town (New York: Random House,

Vi ntage Books, 1957), p. J4-. - -- 1J for understanding as Gavin does. A good example of this quality in Ratliff is his vari ed treatments of the wooden ledge Wat Snopes nail ed onto Flem' s mantelpiece. He consi ders it a Jefferson legend , a monument like the water tank, a part of the Snopes legend whi ch he is responsibl e for generating , having mentioned it to some close friends after hearing about it from the yardman who is the only non-Snopes to have seen it. Ratliff calls it onc e

that little wooden additional ledge nailed in un painted paradox to that hand-c arved and -painted man tel like one of them framed mottoes you keep hanging on the wall where you work or think , saying Remember Dea�h or Ke�p Sm iling or -Working or God is � to remind not Jest you but the strangers that see it too, that you got at least a speaking acquaintance wi th the fact that it might be barely possible it taken a little something more than jest you to get you where you're J at . i

Another interpretation presents what the ledge coul d be and what it is for Flem:

that-ere little raw wood step like out of a scrap pile, nailed by a country carpenter onto that what you might call respec tability's virgin Matterhorn for the Al -p ine climber to cling to panti ng, gathering his-self for that last do-or-die up surge to deface the ultimate crowning pinnacle and peak with his own victorious initials. But not this one; and here was that humi lity a.gain: not in public where it woul d be an insult to any and all that hel d Merc hants and Farmers Bank Al -pine climbing in ven eration , but in private like a sec ret chapel or a shrine: not to cling pant ing to it , desperate and indomitabl e� but to prop hi s feet on it while setting at hi s eas e.J2

Gavin , Chick, and Ratliff go together to the cemetary to see Eula' s memorial , and Ratliff narrates this event in

31Faul kner, Mansion , p. 157. J2 Faul kner , Mans ion , pp. 158 - 159. 14 both The Town and The Mansion with little alteration. But the trip bac k to the offi ce and the scene in the offi ce are narrated by Chi ck in The Town and by Ratliff in The Mansion, the only two viewers of Gavin's behavior at this time, and the variations in details display their vari ed concerns .

Chi ck describes the immediate impact on Gavin of seeing the memorial and of Li nda 's leaving, as his uncle is emoti onally

shaken, then tries to recover wi th humor . Chick' s version of the ri de back to the offi ce emphasizes the distracted nature of Gavin' s driving, as well as Gavin's remarks on the frustrating confusion of a football game and his creation of an antagoni stic attitude on the part of Ratliff. Whe n Ratliff presents the drive, there is no mention of Gavin' s reckless drivi ng or antagoni sm, and Gavin's attention to foot ball is conc entrated on the player in control . Chic k is meticulous about details and adds an imagined local humor story about the janitor fi ndi ng Gavin' s untouched drink the next morni ng.

In each version, Gavin talks conversationally (although on

di fferent sub jects in the two versions) and then suddenly

asks Why di d she, Eula, do it? However, in Chick' s version

Gavin is al so conc erned about Li nda , while Ratliff sees Eul a behind it all and her death as Gavi n's prime conc ern. Ratliff

al so shows comp assion and conc ern for Gavin ; he remarks at

beginni ng and end that Gavin is now free, "nothing to worry

him now," "at peace now , with nothing nowhere in the world .3.3 any more to angui sh or gri eve him." Chick' s narration is

.33 Faulkner, Mansion, pp . 149-150. 15 muc h mo re sel f-centered: he doesn' t show much conc ern for

Gavin, and he latches onto a worry about Linda whom he ha s known muc h more than Eula. Knowing he was onl y a child when all this happened , Chick demonstrates hi s usual concern for remembering and recording as accurately as possible what he experi enc ed.

When a narrator reviews another character' s life usi ng hi s own particular op ini onated diction, it seems especially clear that Faulkner included the recapitulation more to reveal the character speaki ng than to pre sent the al ready kno wn facts . Chick attempts to understand Flem's behavi or - holding Li nda back fr om college and then suddenly letting her go to Oxfo rd--by putting hi mself in Flem' s place, taki ng over

Flem' s " I" :

I aimed to become president of the bank that the presi dent of it now was the man everybody believed ha d been

laying my wife ever since we moved to town • • • and when the dust fi nally settled [after Eula 's suicide] sure enough that fornicating bank president ha d left town and now I was nQ only president of hi s bank but living in hi s house .J4

These statements show Chick' s ability to face adultery frank ly and al so show that he consi ders Flem fully aware of what is goi ng on in Jefferson and in hi s own house hol d, aware eno ugh to ruthlessly take advantage of hi s wife's infidelity.

Montgomery Ward Snopes has an even mo re callous attitude to ward Flem and his wi fe , as he sits watching Flem wi th

that damn little ten-cent snap -o n bow tie ••.no t the same one he took out of Varner 's stock and put on

3 4Faul kner , Mansion, p. 202. 16

the day he came in from that tenant farm and went to work as Va rner 's clerk and married Varner's whore of a daughter in and wore to Texas while the bastard ki d was getting born ...And the bl ack felt hat somebody

told him wa s the kind of hat bankers wore •••No , it didn' t look like it belonged to anybo dy , even after day and night for three years , not even sweated, whic h woul d inc lude while he was laying his wi fe too which wo ul d be all right with her probably since the sort of laying she was used to they probably didn' t even take off their �1o ves, let alone their hats and shoes and overcoats. 3'

Montgomery Ward is not at all sensitive about sex nor does he have any great love fo r Fl em Sno pes and family. He ha s no scruples about bargaining for money to keep Mink in jail or even to have Mink kille d, and he feels good abo ut being

(at least temporarily) in a superior position to Flem since

Flem must ask him for favors.

Chick presents the first description of Eula wi th personal comment, si nc e The Hamlet was told by third-person narration. Muc h of what he relates in the fi rst few pages

of The Town has been straight from Gavin and Ratliff, but when it comes to Eula , he claims "I knew what it wa s too,

even if she wa s gro wn and married and wi th a child older than

I was and I only el even and twelve and thirteen ... 36 About

Eula, it is important fo r Chick that he too experienc ed her ,

that he too felt "there was just too muc h of what she was ...

too muc h of white, too muc h of female, too muc h of maybe just

gl ory, " that he too experi enc ed the gratitude of being al iv e

5 3 Faul kner , Mansion , p. 65. 6 3 Faul kner , Town, p. 6. 17

and male at the same time and place as she , yet al so the

despair and grief that there would never be enough of one 7 man to match he r.3 This one first-hand experi ence he must

claim for himself, even though hi s fee lings differ little

from the common feeling, for it · became important in all of

Jeffe rson to be male enough to understand what Eul a was .

Whe n Mr . Malli so n tries to claim that he has not really no

ticed Eula , hi s wi fe expresses the strongest incredulity.

Flem' s inse nsibility to Eula' s power is one of his most con

demning characteristics. Mink thinks enviously--roughly but

hone stly--of Flem ' s right to Eula:

Ii' ' That just by marrying her in time to save her from drop ping a bastard, Flem woul d not only be the rightful hus band of that damn girl that had kept every man under eighty years ol d in Frenchman's Bend in an uproar eve r sinc e she was fi fteen years ol d by just watc hi ng her walk past , but he had got paid for it to boot: not only the right to fumb le hi s hand every time the notion struc k him under that dress that rutted a man just thi nki ng even about somebody else 's hand doi ng it , but was getting a �re deed to that whol e Ol d Frenc hman place for doi ng it . 38

The compoundi ng of the fi nanc ial success on top of the sexual

suc cess is too much for poor Mi nk. His envious interest in

Flem 's fi nanc ial matters is further shown by hi s erroneous

conc lusi on that Flem is "fixing to get hol d of hal f of all

the rest of it [Will Varner's property] by being ol d Will' s

son-in-law ... 39

Gavi n, in hi s long-wi nded attempts at understanding

8 37Faulkner , Town, p. 6. 3 Faul kner , Mansi on, p. 4.

39Faul kner , Mansi on , p. 4. 18 the activities around him , ex poses his inclination toward truly romantic and exal ted interpretations of life and the world, along wi th a self-torturing coarseness which he oc ca sionally inflicts upon himself and his romantic vi ews. Gavin attributes Flem' s evi ction of Montgomery Ward on illegal whi sky charges ra ther than pornography charges to genuine

"c ivic jealousy and pri de" and sets himself up for a hard fall back to real ity when he later perceives Flem' s real moti 4o vation. He further cleanses Flem by blaming De Spain for the affair (Eul a is excused because she is a woman ; De Spain shoul d have had more sense) and for the material relationship whi ch develop ed between Flem and De Spain because of De Spain' s fear. De Sp ai n uses "his position as mayor of the town to offer the base coinage of its power-plant superintendency and its implied privil eges of petty larceny;• but Flem accepts only for theoretical reasons rather than material ones:

the privilege of mi sappropriating a handful of brass whi ch he--Snopes--had availed himself of not for the petty profit it brought him but rather to see what depth De Sp �l·n•s base and timorous fear would actually desc end to.

Then Gavin bec omes coarse in sp eaki ng of Eul a and De Sp ain-- without doubt torturing himself--yet still Flem remains clean er than De Spain. The reader, of course, al ready knows all the details about the Flem-Eula-De Spain triangle, but

Gavin' s interp retation remains new and informative because it tells the reader indirec tly how Gavin fits into thi s tri angl e. Faul kner need not resort to telling his readers but

4o 41 Faul kner , Town , p. 269. Faul kner , Town, p. 273. 19 can skillful ly reveal Gav in thro ugh hi s own tho ughts. Gavin has De Spain- -Gavin's truer rival- -always take the initiative:

the pres idency of the bank barely vacant, when here he--De Spain- -was agai n not requesting or suggesting but with that crass and brazen gall assuming, taking it fo r granted that he , Snopes, was downright panting fo r the next new chance no t merely to re -compo und but publ icly affirm again hi s own cuckolding , that mutual co-violating a� his wife' s bed--ay , publicly affi rm ing her whoredom .

Gavin imagines De Spain bringing up the threat to Flem' s name and money caused by Byron Snopes' s thi every, and Flem 's response , simply st ated: "He obeyed. He had no choice. Be cause there wa s the innocence; ignoranc e, if you li ke . 1143

Gav in is the mo st ac tive anti-Snopes person in town, yet in privat e he displays a tendency to exc use, to lessen Fl em 's

Snopesism. Fo r Gavi n is alway s fighting his own brand of

Snopesism, a prettier and grander brand, rather than the real thing .

As Gavin tries to so rt out and comprehend Flem's actions , he mixes in a lot of spec ulation wi th a little fact and ro mantic ally emp hasi zes the threat that he and Matt Levitt pose to Fl em thro ugh their attentions to Linda . Matt bec omes a

"gorilla-size d bravo .. . with his Golden Gloves fi sts or may be merely his Golden Gl oves reputation, " "the crown princ e 4 of the motor age.11 4 Gav in's desc ription of himself inc ludes the custo mary sel f-mockery--"the middl e-aged (whiteheaded to o even) small-town lawy er, " "c o rrupting her mind" (his sister

42 4J Faul kner , Town, p. 274. Faul kner , Town, p. 275. 44 Faul kner, Town, p. 285. 20

Maggi e' s phrase) rather than her body--at the same time that he explores the powerful implications of hi s relationship wi th Li nda, he who was "Fl em' s champion in the ejection of that fi rst , the Ohi o gorilla, threat. 1145

Ratliff often serves as a grounding infl uenc e to Gavin' s ex tended speculations , trying to get Gavin to se e thi ngs re ali stically wi thout comi ng ri ght out and telling hi m. Before the section quoted above where Gavin is trying to fi gure out

Flem' s involvement wi th Montgomery Ward and hi s acqui sition of the bank positions , Ratli ff suggests that perhaps Flem want s to be presi dent of the bank, and Gavin vi olently opposes the idea that Fl em woul d want to reach that far.46 Hi s mi s- understandi ng is dec lared in Ratliff' s famous two-sent enc e chapter which follows this conversation: "Because he mi ssed ? it. He mi ssed it completely. "� Then after Chick narrates Montgomery Ward's episode including Fl em' s and Gavin' s in volvement , Ratliff has another short chapter: "And still he mi ssed it, even set--sitting right there in his own office and ac tively watching Fl em ri d Jefferson of Montgomery Ward. 48 And sti ll I coul dn't tell him.11 Ratliff can't tell Gavi n hi s imagined explanations are too far from reality, but can only hop e that ev entually circ umstances will cause Gavin to

see more clearly.

45 Faulkner , T own, p. 285. 46 Faul kner , Town, p. 151. 47 Faulkner , Town , p. 153. 48 Faul kner , Town, p. 177. 21

Gav i n' s views and Ratliff' s views frequently confl ict.

Gavin spends a long time in The Town imagining what Fl em took out to Varners 'after Linda went off to school , how he got there , and what the Varners' reactions were.49 Then suddenly

Ratliff appears and in one paragraph declares a large part of

Gavin's speculatio n fal se with the telling of hi s own involvement in the inc ident. This intrusion by Ratliff presents

Gavin' s imagi nings as fal se to both Gavin and the reader. But

Ratl iff hi mself doesn' t kno w very much at thi s point so he 0 spends the next chapter5 trying to guess what it was that

Flem handed to Mrs. Varner that woul d get Will Varner into

Jefferson at fo ur o'clock in the morni ng. And even in The

Mansion, when more events have occurred to help explain Fl em' s trip and mo re info rmati on has come out , Ratliff still specu- lates , runni ng through the ev ents and adding hi s ideas about people' s feel ings and reac tions. He takes hi s own info rmation acquired in a conversation with Eula, adds facts Gavin found out ab out even though "when Lawyer fi nally to ld me what littl e he ac tively knowed , it was jest evidenc e I had already pre sumed on , 1151 admits "we got to presume on a few known fac ts .5 agai n, 11 2 and comes up with a final (y et by no means defi ni tive fo r the reader) version of the ep iso de. Just because

49 Faulkner, Town, pp. 290-295. 50 Faul kner , Town, PP· 296-JOO. 51 Faul kner , Mansion , P· 141. 52 Faulkner , Mans ion , p. 142. 22

Ratli ff cuts off Gavi n' s spec ulati on does not mean that he

cannot specul ate ei ther , and the careful reader will real ize

l that Faul kner intends to present two versions that cannot be

' Ii resolved into one accurate version, ev en if one has more sem-

blanc e of fac t than the other .

Gavin is not alway s persuaded to accept Ra tliff' s ver

sion ei ther ; sometimes he stubbornly sticks to his own .

Duri ng a di scussion of Wall Snopes' s busines s ventures , Rat-

li ff mentions Wal l 's wi fe' s enmity for Sno pes and the way she

says "Them goddamn Snopes " wi th true conviction. Gavin asks

why she has never changed their name and Ratl iff explai ns:

"You dont understand . She dont want to change it. She jest want s to live it down . She aint trying to drag him by the hai r out of Snop es , to escape from Snopes. She' s got to puri fy Sno��s itself. She' s got to beat Snopes from the inside. "::>j

But Gavin ei ther wasn't listening or forgot or chose to be-

li ev e otherwi se , because later on when he again reviews Wall 's

life, he mentions "the implacable enmity of hi s wi fe toward

the very word Snopes , who , it was said in Jefferson , wa s even 54 trying to persuade her husband to change hi s own by law ...

On another issue, Gavin accepts Ratli ff' s op inion even

though there is no factual reason why he shoul d and ev en

though Gavin' s noti on is the one which reappears ov er and ov er

again in Jefferson conv ersati on , while Ratliff's version is

all new. Ratli ff tells Gavin that Will Varner didn't give

5 3 Faulkner , Town, p. 149-150. 4 5 Faulkner, Town, p . 2 82. 23

Flem the Old Frenchman 's place as was alway s bel ieved. Varner offered Flem the pl ace, but Flem wanted the cash value in

stead wi th the option to buy the pl ace later at that same price (which wa s low because Varner had beaten Fl em down to a low sum).55 Later on, Gavin mentions Varner "who never ha d and never woul d forgive him ( Fl em] for having tricked him into selling hi m the Ol d Frenc hman place for five hundred dollars, whic h he, Flem, sold wi thin two weeks for a profit of three or four hundred perc ent": 56 Gavin has acc epted Ratli ff's ver sion wi thout even asking what his source was and has added hi s own detail, the sp ecific amount paid. . � �·1.i Another st ory told and changed is about I. o. Snopes and Jack Houston in the bl acksmith' s shop in Frenc hman 's

Bend. In the original version in The Hamlet (p. 65), Houston' s horse fl ings I. o. into the shrinking-tub, but when Ratliff mentions the incident as a means of identifying I. O . , he tells it as if Houston had thrown I. O. into the watertub.57

Ratli ff wa s surely Gavin's source for the st ory si nce it hap pened in Frenc hman 's Bend , yet when Gavin tells it, he too has altered it, taki ng Ratliff' s change that Ho uston threw

I. O. into the tub and doubling it, having Houston dump I. o. twice (he al so changed the day: in the original version it was

the very fi rst day that Ec k and I. O. were in the shop ; in

Gavin' s versi on it was some later day when I . o. decided to

55 56 Faulkner , Town , p. 228 . Faulkner, Town, p. 28J. 57 Faul kner, Town, p. 70. 24

8 come in and take over for Ec k) . 5 Faulkner has appropriately had the two fi gures most actively worried abo ut combating

Sno pesism turn the story around to a more detrimental ver sion, as we ll as including Gavi n participating in hi s share of exaggerated storytelli ng.

An inc ident of suppo sedly inno c ent recapi tulation near the end of The Ma nsion bri efly po ints out the clo seness yet the difference between Gavi n and Ratli ff. When Ratl iff calls Gavin to tell him that Mi nk left the peni tentiary without taki ng the money , Ratliff say s "' Ai nt no need to tell her

[Linda] yet that likely she's jest fi ni she d killing her maw' s husband- -, '059 but Gavi n has already put the telepho ne re ceiver down and does no t hear Ratliff say this. But mi nutes later , in speaki ng to the sheriff, he repeats Ratliff' s se n- tenc e "almost verbatim, " as the narrator says: '" Tell a wo man that apparently she just fi ni shed murdering her father 0 at eight oclock this morni ng?1"6 That the two men wo ul d speak so si milarly reveal s ho w closely their mi nds work and how much alike are thei r feel ings. Yet the narrator's "al mo st verbatim" al so emp ha si zes the fact that their statement s were no t identical. And whil e other wo rds differ , the most significant variation in the two statements is that Ratliff says "her maw's husband0 and Gavin sa ys 0her father."

58 Faul kner , Town, pp . J6-J7. 59 Faul kner , Mansion, p. 377. 6° Faulkner, Mansio n, P· J78. 25

Grant ing that Gavin' s audience is more public, the variation st ill seems to reflect Gavi n' s greater sensibility and un wi llingness to face certain facts, such as Li nda's illegiti- macy. Ratliff can more easily face the fac ts without bei ng so sensi tive to the moral implications. In The Mansi on , Rat li ff .tal ks about Gavi n' s college degrees (about which the trilogy reader al ready knows) in a new way :

Lawyer , a town-rai sed bac hel or that was goi ng to need a Master of Arts from Harvard and a Doctor of Philosophy from Hei delberg je st to stiffen him up to where he pe with the natural normal Yoknapatawpha Count y ��. g�

Ratliff, rai sed in the country, get s by all right without any advanced education, taki ng things as they come, but Gavin al ways has to work over every experienc e (or even potential experi e nce).

Ratliff and Gavin both discuss Mi nk Snope s's murdering of Houston and add their own opini ons. The third-person nar- rat or of the "Flem" section of The Mansi on records Gavi n' s thought s about Mink and the murder : "a cowar dly and savage murder , 1162 "the little child-si ze creature who must have been mad to begi n with and whom thi rty-eight years in a peni t en tiary could not have improved any , 1163 and hi s remark to the

Warden at Parchman , "' He' s mad. In 64 Gavin doesn' t know Mi nk

61 Faul kner , Mansion, P• 116. 62 Faul kner, Mansi on , p. 367 . 6 3Faul kner , Mansi on , p. 371. 64 Faul kner , Mansi on , P· 375. 26 at all or ev en that muc h ab out his crime , but his ba sic pre judice abo ut murderers supplies him wi th an opinion. The

Warden' s re sponse, "'We're all mad here ... Even the pris oners too,11165 suggests the inadequacy of Gavin's stock attitude , sugge sts that he needs to look at the man himself and get beyond the catch-all words. Ratli ff is opinionated about Mink also, but his opinion shows closer perception and more understanding of Mink' s situation. At the very start of hi s di scus sion of the murder, Ratli ff declares that "Mink

Snopes was mean. He wa s the only out-and-o ut mean Snopes we

ever experi enced • we never had run into one befo re that was just mean wi thout no profit consideration or hope ata11.066

He further suggests that maybe Mink was the only mean Snopes precisely be cause "there wasn' t no sign of any profit" in hi s crime . 67 Here Ratli ff begins to show an understanding of why Mink committed the murder and how he suffere d. He thinks through Mink' s crime and realizes that he didn' t kill Ho uston for money. He guesses that , while Mink knew he should wait until Flem got ba ck, things got so that nothing else mattered to Mink but experiencing the ki lling of Houston, and thi s gue ss is re peatedly verified on pages five and six of The

Mansion. Further, he understands Mink' s parano ia while in jail , his fe eling that "growe d-up men" and their world are his enemies, which forc es him to appeal to children for help. 68

65 Faul kner , Mans ion , P· 375° 66 67 Faulkner, Town, p. 79 . Faul kner, Town, p. 79, 8 6 Faul kner , Town, p. 81 . 27

Ratliff continually displays a much deeper understand ing of, and often compassion for, the people around him than any of the other narrators . Ratliff shows a degree of com pas sion, similar to that in the repeated statement "the pore sons of bitche s ," over Eck's death when he describes it, em- phasizing the futility of the accident ("'wasting his time jest hunting a lost child that wasn't even lost , jest his maw 69 thought he was--'") . Ratl iff understands Eula quite well , possibly due to the relationship between them which is im plied by many incidents in the novels (Eula's knowing hi s name ; their rather intimate conversations on the street) yet never discussed. Labove sensed immediately upon seeing Eula that

there was nothing in books here or anywhere else that she woul d ever need to know, who had been born already completely equipped not only to face and combat but to overcome anything the future could invent to meet her wi th ; 70

Ratliff realizes also that Eul a never needed an education . 71

Several times he correctly guesses what Eula would do or feels the same as she does. When Ratliff imagines Gavin's vi sit to Eula about Linda's going to college , Ratliff figures that Eula probably called Gavin by hi s first name for the 72 first time with this sentence "'Marry her , Gavin .'11 Ratliff

69 Faulkner, Town, p . 1 4J. 70 Faulkner , Hamlet , p. 114 . 7 1 Faulkner , Mansion, p. 116 . 72 Faulkner , Mansion , P· 14o. 28

has the vi sit wrong , but when Eul a comes to Gavin's office

the evening of her death, she tells him three times "'Marry

her , Gavin, '" and it is the first time she has ever used his 73 name in speaking to him . Both Eula and Ratliff believe

that , while Flem could easily have suggested the idea of a 74 will to Linda , he didn't need to take that step . Ratliff

understands that Linda had given up by the time Flem offered

to let her go to college ; Eula too knew that Flem had beaten

Linda even though Linda "'didn' t even know there had been a 75 battle and she had surrendered. '"

One of the most constantly repeated incidents is

Fl em' s swindle of Ratliff , Henry Armstid, and Odum Bookwri ght

in the Old Frenchman's place deal . Almost all of the re

tellings are by Ratliff : once he is prodded into telling the

story by Gavin (pp. 7-8, Town) ; three times Gavin tells about

the deal himself (pp. 124 , 271 , 292, Town) ; but five other

times Ratliff .brings up the incident himself (p. 228, Town ;

pp . 115, 1 27 , 138, 1 42, Mans ion) . In these recapitulations ,

Ratliff alway s mentions what the men paid�-hi s share being

hi s half of the Jefferson restaurant which gave Flem his

start in town--and most of the time he mentions the money

that was buried by Flem in the old rose garden. Twice he men

tions that Will Varner thought the place was worthless until

73 Faulkner, Town, P• 332. 74 Faulkner, Town , p. 326 and Mansion, p. 1 43 . 75 Faulkner, Mansion, P• 1 41 and Town, P· 325 . 29

Flem showed him better (yet Ratliff admits he bought the place because he figured if Will had it and kept it, it must be worth something) . The se repeated references to the only time Ratliff was bettered by Flem (or by anyone financially) seem obses sive , as though with all the interest in Snopes ism; Ratliff can never forget (and perhaps can never forgive himself for) the inci dent . Yet sometimes he seems to take it lightly , as he does mo st of life, and doesn't hold an outward grudge against Flem for it at all : they were both dealing and one had to lose . When he agrees to drive Flem out to Frenchman' s Bend for the fee of two cigars , he say s to himself:

Oh 'sho , he beat me out of my half of that little caf'6 me and Grover Winbush owned, but who can say jest who lost then? If he hadn' t a got it, Grover might a turned it into a Frenc h postcard peepshow too , and then I'd be out there where Grover is now : night watchman at that brick yard . 7 °

The various recapitulations of the buggy fight be tween Mccarron (with Eula) and the rival local boys show many changes, most of them reasonable. In the original ver sion in The Haml et, Hoake and Eul a share the fighting wi th her wielding the handle of the buggy whip. After the fight they return to the house, Varner sets Hoake 's broken arm while Eula change s her dre ss (presumably dirty and torn from the fight) , and then Hoake and Eula go back outside . When he leaves, his arm is rebroken, and Eula must "remove this

76 Faulkner, Town, pp . 296- 29 7 . JO

77 time the dress which had her own blood on it." This version ' ! : indicates that they did not make love immediately after the

fight but only after Varner set Hoake 's arm ; it al so indi-

cates that that night was when Eula both lost her virgini ty

and conceived Linda .

The first to retell the incident in The Town is Gavin

who has heard about it from Ratliff . He is talking to Eula

the first time in the offic e, and his version is a romantic

one with Hoake the hero ic protective male who fights wi th one

hand (and the whip handle) and shiel ds Eula with the other

hand . Gavin sharply feels the contrast between Hoake who was

supposedly able to whip "them all off even wi th one arm

broken" and Gavin's own rememberance that he couldn't even 78 fini sh the fight he started himself with only De Spain.

Gavin refers to the scene again as Eula's "fierce awkward

surrender in a roadside thicket at night with a lover still

bleeding from a gang fight ," an episode of passion but not 79 love . Gavin understandably portrays the male capable of

rousing and sharing Eula' s passion as a larger-than-life

hero , whi ch he knows he himself is not. Ratliff has two

versions of the buggy scene , one in The Town and the other

in The Mansion . In both , Eula is an active participant ; in

fact, Ratliff makes a point of his belief that the town' s

version where Hoake is single handedly heroic and saves Eula

7 7 Faulkner , Hamle t, p. 1 4o. 7 8 ? 9 Faulkner, Town, p. 95. Faulkner, Town , p. 288. 31

"except for a natural maiden swoon," can' t be right . It seems unl ikely that Ratliff woul d present Eula as active here but have told Gavin that Hoake fought alone ; this passage then places the burden of the heroic version solely on Gavin.

In both of Ratl iff 's versions , Eul a and Hoake make love on the road (although at varying distances from the scene of the fight) , and there is no mention of the rebroken arm describe d in The Hamlet. But Ratliff agrees that Eula lost her virginity and conceived Linda at the same time , even tho ugh he admits getting pregnant "folks say aint likely to happen jest 80 the first time . "

It is in Ratliff 's The Mansion version of the buggy scene that he makes the stronge st case for telling a story the way he wants it to be . He tells that the ambushers be lieved they would be beating McCarron up after he had suc ceeded in winning Eula, but

They was wrong of course ; hadn't nothing happene d yet . I mean , I prefer that even that citadel was still maiden right up to this moment . No : what I mean is, I wont have nothing else for the simple dramatic verities ex cept that ever thing happened right there that night and all at once . 8 1

Ratliff declares his authorial intentions again: "So my con- jecture is jest as good as yourn , maybe better since I 'm a interested party , being as I got what the feller calls a 82 theorem to prove ." And again with stubbornne ss :

8° Faulkner , Town, P• 1 00 . 8 1 Faulkner, Mansion, p. 1 22 . 8 2 Faulkner, Mansion, P• 122 . 32

And that 's when I beli eve it happened. I dont even insist or argue that it happened that way . I jest simply decline to have it any other way exc ept that one because there aint no acc eptable degrees between what has got to be right and what jest can possibly be . BJ

The reader of the trilogy must always remember that all the characters are telling their own versions , their own prefer ences. Cleanth Brooks emphasize s this, stating that Ratliff consciously creates his own versions and admits it, while 84 Gavin and others present their versions more unconsciously .

Just because not all the instances of recapitulation are discussed in connection with their alteration does not mean that none of the other instances involve change . Most do , and the appendix attempts to indicate these alterations briefly . But the alterations discussed above are the one s whi ch most reveal the characters making the change s. Some other changes do not indicate such reasoning behind them and seem to be mistakes more than intended alteration. Al so , sometimes Faulkner deliberately included recapitulations whi ch do not contain any altered details. These sometimes dully repetitive recapitulations are most evident in Chick' s nar ration. In The Town within three pages (pp. 103- 105) , he makes three' references to Ratliff' s statement about never losing Helen which had ended the chapter before (Ratliff re peats the thought himself on page 130 of The Mansion , repeat ing one sentence verbatim) . Four times Chick presents some

83 Faulkner, Mansion, pp . 123-124. 84 c1eanth Brooks , William Faulkner : The Yoknapatawpha County (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), p. 218 . 33

version of hi s rather unfunny line about Melisandre Harriss--

"Backus that was as Thackeray said"- -and it certainly doesn't 85 get any funnier each time . He picks up a line of Ratliff' s

about Flem' s chewing of "the same little chunk of French

man' s Bend air he had brought in his mouth when he moved to

Jefferson thirty years ago " and repeats it three more times 8 6 in only eight more pages. This repetitiveness reminds the

reader that Chick does not have the vitality and humor of

Gavin and Ratliff and can therefore never draw the same in-

terested audienc e as a storyteller . He sees himself as a

reporter and tries to record acc urately . In many ways he wa s

a much more likeabl e narrator as a child than he is when he

is older but still quite immature , and this repetitiveness

is one part of his waning attractiveness .

Another area which Faulkner cho se to keep the same

although frequently recapitulated is that of physical details.

Around each character there is a set of consistent details

, I whi ch reappear many times : Ratliff 's brown face and tieless blue shirts , and also , continual in Gavin' s narration, Rat-

liff' s being "too damne d intelligent" or "too damned shrewd" ;

Flem' s tie and hat (whichever one , both the cloth cap and

the black hat stuck around for a long time) and hi s chewing

(whether tobacco or gum or air) and his resting with hi s feet

85 Faulkner , Mansion, pp. 254 , 255 , 356 , 359 . He has al so previously applied thi s same formula to Linda Snopes Kohl (p. 179 , Mansion) . 86 Faulkner , Mansion, p. 220. 34

propped on the ledge. Al so included in this set of repeated

items which do not change is the social smallne ss of Jeffer-

, l son-- only the particular incident or relationship this will

affec t changes--and the smallness of Jefferson recalls the

haml et , Frenc hman's Bend , which was too small for everyone

no t to know why Flem and Eula had to go to Texas and why they

brought back such a big baby .

Within the trilogy , there are some big changes which

are clearly not mistakes but show a change of opinion by

Faul kner , a conscious decision to present something dif-

ferently . The least of these changes is the switch from

Aaron Rideout , Ratliff' s cousin, being hi s partner in the

restaurant , to the partner bei ng Grover Clevel and Winbush.

It seem s unli kely that Faul kner fo rgot the name , but prob

ably instead decided that the new name was more appropri ate,

perhap s bec ause of the increased humor in having a charac -

ter li ke Winbush named after a presi dent . James B. Meri

wether reports that wi th many of the inconsistenc ies be�

tween the books of the trilogy, Faul kner fel t that The Ham

or The let needed to be correc ted rather than --The ---Town

Mansi on bec ause he preferred the later versions of cer

tain events ; perhaps Aaron Rideout 's name and fami ly con

nection was one of these detai ls .87 Other changes of thi s

87James B. Meriwether in Approac hes to the Study of Twentieth-Cent Li terature : Proceedings of the Conference in the study ��A Twenti eth-Cent Literatur� ,-i:'Irst Session "'[East Lansing , 1961) , pp. 43-4}f'Y, 47 , also discus sed and quo ted by Millgate, p. 251 . Meriwether also rec alls that 35 sort include the variations in Mink and Houston' s conflict over a cow: in The Hamlet , Mink's yearling bull is kept by

Houston for over a year and at his store Varner decides for a settl ement of a three dollars pasturage fee to be paid to

Houston by Mink ; in The Mansion, where the whole conflict is described in greater detail, it is Mink's milk cow whi ch he allows to stay at Houston's for the winter after he realizes that perhaps this will freshen the cow (which would greatly benefit the impoverished Mink) , and the settlement made by

Varner at Houston's is for eighteen dollars (to pay for the cow) , which Mink works out by digging postholes . It is the additional dollar pound fee for the one night's keep which finally infuriates Mink to the point of committing murder.

The latter list of details obvio usly allows more easily the more specific and c ompassionate view of Mink' s affairs which occurs in The Mansion . Faulkner's desire to present this more compassionate viewpoint therefore accounts for the alteration

Faulkner removed some of the inconsistencies between The Haml et and The Town and made even more of an effort toelim inate inc onsistencies between The Mansion and the first two books : "Not only did he make a lot of small changes, but in at least one chapter he did some rather substantial rewriting The Ham to bring it into closer accordance with The Town and - let," but , "he refused to bring some section"'SO'f the work [The Mansion] into accordance with The Hamlet. His imagina tion had continued to work , he liked the later product better, and he refused to change . Remember , too , that it wasn't his editor' s idea to eliminate the discrepancies, it was Faulkner 's. He wa s not worried about discrepancies between The Mansion and all the rest of his work ; he rather enjoys these discrep ancies--says they make hi s work vital , something that is living and growing , not dead." J6 of details. Faulkner , like Ratliff , claimed the author 's 88 right to al ter facts and shi ft incidents around in time .

The biggest change is the character change s of Flem and Eula. In the latter two books , they are not as strongly presented; they have become regular down-to-earth figures

(.al though still tops in their categories) , in comparison to their almo st mythic stature in The Hamlet . In the last two books they are presented much more through their effect on other characters--especially Gavin, Chick, Ratliff and Mink- rather than directly . Yet Flem was seldom presented direc tly-

Michael Millgate notes that Flem speaks only 244 words in all of The Hamlet, not counting the thirty-three Ratliff gives him 89 in hi s imagined trip to Hell . Peter Swiggart complains about Faulkner's excessive altering of the cha�acterization of Flem and Eula in the last two books whi le he was careful about less important Yoknapatawpha County references--the ex act opposite of his added Compson geneology in which he dis regarded facts but kept true to the original characteriza 90 tion. Other critics, especially Irving Howe , protest that

Faulkner has failed to live up to his intentions of writing a trilogy about Snopesism because the last two books deal more with Gavin, Chick, and Ratliff than with Flem. But it

88 Gwy-nn and Blotner, p. 29 . 8 9Millgate , p. 194 . ° 9 swiggart , p. 197 . Millgate , pp . 250-252 , presents an intere sting theory about Faulkner' s careful Yoknapatawpha references in The Mans ion and his avowe d desire to write a Domes day Book of Yoknapatawpha County . 3 7 seems equally valid that this was the way Faulkner always in tended to wri te the trilogy , for Snopesism is still an im portant topic in The Town and The Mansion with only a shift in emphasis away from Snopes's physical activities to the , effect of Snopesism on characters like Gavin and Chick and

Ratliff . Faul kner himself explaine d the change in Eula' s character at the University of Virginia by saying that she had grown older and that the need to protect her child forced her to become less selfish and more understanding of 91 other people .

The trilogy di splays the finesse of Faulkner 's writing tal ent in a number of narrative choices about whether or not to employ recapitulation. Instances of skillful and pur poseful recapitulation abound . In The Town, Faulkner fre quently ended one chapter and began another with the same idea. With its varied narrators , this technique serves to link the chapters and add a feeling of ongoing conversation.

Chapter Three of The Town ends with Chi ck talking about Sally

Priest 's two black eyes : "Gowan said you would have even thought she was proud of it," and Ratliff starts .the next 1 92 chapter : "She was . Hi s aunt .•.cou ld have told him why . 1

Chick ends Chapter Twelve by relating the conversation in the office after Gavin 's fight with Matt Levitt : "'You get out too,' Uncle Gavin said, still hol ding Linda where she

91 Gwynn and Blotner , pp . 115-116 . 92 Faulkner, Town, pp . 77-78. J8

was shaking and crying against him, hi s no se bleeding onto

her too now, " and Gavin starts the next on the same line :

" 'Go on, ' I said. 'You get out too.' So he did, and I 93 stood there holding her."

Another excellent recapitulation is Gavin's quick ·re

view of the circumstances surrounding Montgomery Ward 's

altered charges. Thi s flashback is set off by Linda's men

tioning of Mink' s escape attempt and Montgomery Ward 's con-

secutive presence in Parchman and hi s assistance with Mink's

escape attempt . Gavin flashe s through thi s and through hi s memory of Mink mo st realistically , for he has only now per

ceived why Montgomery Ward had to go to Parchman , has only

now linked the two events .

Faulkner 's treatment of conversations during the time

Mink is free but still on the road demonstrates that he did

not use recapitulation indiscriminately but with decided in-

tentions . Gavin repeats two secti ons of his conversation

wi th Flem to Ratliff , hi s telling Flem that Mink was loose

and Flem' s "Much obliged" reply , and hi s query about telling 94 Linda and Flem' s "Why?" reply . By including these conver

sations , Faulkner is able to present directly Ratliff' s re-

acti ons to Flem' s responses, his refusal to get upset or ex-

cited as Gavin does. But when Gavin talks on the phone with 95 his friend in Memphis, he only "told, repeated, the gi st" '

93 Faulkner, Town , pp. 191-192. 94 Faulkner , Mansion, pp . 38 6 , 3 89. 95 Faulkner , Mansion, p . 390 . 39

to Ratliff , possibly partly because Ratliff was right there and the recapitulation wo ul d have to immediately follow , but al so because Ratliff's reaction to thi s conversation is not so significant . Other times recapitulat ion may serve

thematic purposes, as the repeated occurrenc e of the phrase

"the pore sons of bitches" spoken by Goodyhay , Gavin, and

Ratliff at various times stresses this opini on of mankind .

Occasionally in the trilogy Faulkner included pas

sages whi ch forecast future action. A few time s in the later books , the information forecasted woul d be known by a reader

of the trilogy but news to a reader of that volume only .

Some of the most significant forecastings are the mention early in The Hamlet that Flem would later be president of the

Jefferson bank ; Chick's mention in the midst of the Cotillion

Ball story in The Town of the future time when Eula "was dead and Mr de Spain had left town wearing public mourning for her as if she had been his wi fe" ( note that the reader is not

told that her death was a suicide ) ; Mink's mention early in

The Mansion of Linda's marriage , her war accident , her wi dow

hood spent in Jefferson with Flem, and her involvement with

the "nigger Sunday school " and the "commonists" ; and later in

The Mansion Chick's forecasting of Linda's harassment by the 9 6 local people and by the F.B.I . The se forecasts alter the

chronological plan of the books for the reader and dimini sh

96 Faulkner, Haml et, p. 58; Town , p. 7 4 ; Mansion, p. 9J ; Mansion, p. 217 . Other forecasts which deal wi th lesser de tails are listed in the appendix. 40 any possibility of a my stery-like unfolding of events . Most importantly , they blend the actions of the three volumes, making the prime telling of an event , at least in part , re capitulation . With both forecasts and recapitulation, an event may easily be described in at least two of the books , if no t all three : thus the books work toge ther rather than separately to build up the common body of information about people and events .

Faulkner made some di stinct choices about the recap itulation of Mink' s story whi ch significantly molded the narratives of the three books . Mink's story is relatively important in The Hamlet, wi th new details appearing at vari ous times as they fit into the chronological narrative . But in The Town, hi s story is hardly mentioned and of minimum significance . The only account is Ratliff's: he tells about

Houston and hi s wife , the actual shooting, Mink's time in jail and hi s trial , wi th emphasis on Mink' s thoughts abo ut

Fl em , hi s no t being able to wai t for Flem's return before he commi tted the murder, and then his nonproductive wait in jail for Flem to come help him out . There is no discussion of why

Mink shot Houston (except for Ratliff 's conviction that Mink is mean) ; no animal , whether bull yearling or milk cow , is mentioned at all . One important event occurs during the time period of The Town whi ch Faul kner did no t include in the book at all : Mink's escape attempt . At the end of The Town, the reader has no idea why Fl em sent Montgomery Ward to Parchman , but only knows that Flem put the alcohol in the studio . 41

Faulkner did not make this lack of motive a big question in

The Town ; it' s just another of Flem' s my sterious deal ings , and sinc e Mink is seldom mentioned in the book , the reader can hardly make the connection between Mink and Montgomery on hi s own. This connection is left for the narrative of

The Mansion in whi ch Mink is a central character and his failed escape attempt is necessary to the plot . The treat ment of Mink in The Mansion is hardly just a retelling from

The Haml et or The Town even tho ugh there are recapitulated details. Rather it is an ext ended description and analysis, a version with much new detail that drastically alters the emphasis toward a compassionate understanding of thi s piti 97 ful murderer . Much of the older information is used with a repetitivene ss that makes it imagistic : Mink' s yelling out from the jail and the courtroom , the Judge 's questioning of

Mink about hi s plea and Mink's single-minded reply , and Mink's hands at the jail window bars . In this respect, the books stand separately , with each following a distinct plan con ceive d of by Faulkner as proper to that portion of the trilogy .

Each book of the trilogy contains some recapitulation from within itself only . But most of the recapitulation comes from the other books of the set, and therefore it seems logi cal that The Mansion would have the largest amount of recap itulated material . But , along wi th thi s reason, another

97 Holmes details the change s toward increased sympathy for Mink from the short story "The Hound" to The Haml et to The Mansion , pp . 19-JO . 42 factor influenc es the pattern of recapitulation . The Town has less than half the amount of recapitulation found in

The Mansion ; yet it is of the same approximate length. Al so ,

The Town contains a large amount of recapitulated events which originally occurred within the book itself. The original sources for the recapitulation in The Mansion show statis tically a direction that I feel the reader senses and that links up with the fact that The Town has so much internal re capitulation. The first 127 pages of The Mansion include almost all of the recapitulation of event s that originally occurred in The Hamlet. ( All but one of the incident s that originated in The Haml et and that occt" · 'ifter page 1 27 in

The Mansion were also told about in T, 'r own or earlier in

The Mansion; this include s references to the Old Frenchman 's place swindle and to Mink's trial ; the referenc e that did not previously occur in either of the later books is a brief mention of Pat Stamper. ) Approximately half of the recapitu lation in these first 127 pages refers to event s which hap pened first in The Hamlet, half which happene d first in The

Town. As indicated above , the rest of The Mansion has recap itulation almost totally from either The Town or The Mansion itself.

The se statistics suggest that the settings of the books is the prime reason for the greater amount of recapitulation in The Mansion ( and that predominantly from The Town) and for the recapitulation in The Town drawing on that book itself so much. The events which took place in Frenc hman 's Bend are 4J important in both of the later books for the establishment of characters who came from the hamlet, but they are not as important to the present action in Jefferson as are the events which took place in Jefferson itself. Thus , The Mansion has more recapitulation because the events which took place before Eul a 's suicide in Jefferson are so involved wi th the events taking place there after her death and burial . Charac - ters new to the reader in The Town--Gavin, Chick, Linda , and

Montgomery Ward Snopes--are of central importance in The

Mansion, and their stories must be retold, along wi th Flem's and Eul a 's actions in Jefferson. Events from The Hamlet have little importance to the action of The Mansion once the im portant events like Mink' s crime and trial , and Flem' s involvement wi th the Varners , especially Eula, have been recounted.

The differences and unities of the books of the trilogy have been discussed with various interpretations . In both hi s prefatory note to The Mansion and in his comments at the

University of Virgini8.) Faulkner spoke of the trilogy as a chronicle . He saw the story that he wanted to write in these books as too big for one book and felt that he could not make it conform to standard no tions of "a novel ." It could not be compressed enough to be one novel and was too loose for the 98 novel 's traditional form . He contrasted the writing of a chroni cle to the writing of "a single piece which has the uni ty and coherence, the proper emphasis and integration,

9 8 Gwynn and Blotner, pp . 107-108. 44

99 whi ch a long chroni cle doesn' t have ." Faulkner's comments suggest that he did not think of the three works separately , 100 even though they were wri tten and published separately .

Michael Millgate argues for the unity of the trilogy . Al though The Town and The Hamlet are very different books ,

Millgate sees them as parts of a trilogy :

The Town none theless builds upon The Hamlet ; the events of The Haml et lie behind all the situations of the later novel , and there can be no doubt of Faulkner' s intention that they should be read in sequence . 101

Millgate notes the lack of characterization of Flem and Rat- liff in the later book as an argument for the books as "a con 102 tinuous narrative , 11 while other critics consider the di s- continued characterization of Flem as a sign of the di sunity of the trilogy. Irving Howe criticizes the first two books for being written in "different modes" and adds "they take different attitudes toward what seems to be a common body of 103 material . 11 Thi s statement is an accurate appraisal of what these books achieve , but Howe is wrong to take this char- acteristic as a faul t and a movement away from Faulkner' s original intentions . Rather, the purposeful use of multiple narrators (the several narrators of The Town and the third person narrator of The Haml et and the blend of both in

99 Gwynn and Blotner , p. 108 . These comments were made betwe en the publication of The Town and The Mansion. lOO Faulkner said at the University· of Virginia : "! thought of the whole story at once like a bolt of lightening lights up a landscape and you see everything but it takes time to write it."--Gwynn and Blotner, p. 90. 101 102 Millgate , pp. 237- 23 8 . Millgate , p. 2J8 . l0 3 Howe , p . 282. 45

The Mansion) al ong wi th "a common body of material " to be recapitulated was Faulkner 's desired aim for the trilogy, the means he chose as the best to tell hi s story .

Retelling is a natural and typical characteri stic of

Faulkner's wri ting , which he uses both to present information and to repeat important thematic concerns . In the Snopes

Trilogy , recapitulation serves the special purpose of allowing a reader to understand and enjoy either of the last two books alone , without reading the rest of the trilogy. Read separ ately , the books would be rather cryptic, but less cryptic than, say , Absalom , Absalom! The recapitulation al so unifies the three works, not just as actions and part of the plot, but al so thematically , by expressing the recurrent concerns of the characters and the author. Each novel tells its own smaller story (with the help of some borrowed ideas and de tails successfully incorporated into the work) , and all three work together to tell the larger story, the chronicle . In his wri ting , Faulkner was alway s drawing upon the whole past of hi s wri ting career, as the people in Yoknapatawpha County draw upon their whole county's history to understand their particular present . Faulkner' s techni que of connecting and relating hi s works to one ano ther makes Faulkner particularly fitted to write a trilogy . APPENDIX--RECAPITULATIONS AND FORECASTS

Each item in this appendix presents a recapitulation or a forecast listed according to its location. Along with a brief description of each recapitulation and of alterations in thi s material appears a symbol or symbols ( H, T, and/or

M--the initials of the novels) which indicate the book or books in which this incident or detail has previously ap peared. The first symbol therefore indicates the original source of the information . I have tried to list all of the recapitulations and forecasts within the Snopes trilogy, but wi thout doubt I have unfortunately overlooked a few instances.

Recapitulations : in The Hamlet :

1. p. 58 : Flem is living in the village now and wears a tie like he wore every day until the day he died. H. 2. p . 70 : Ratliff refers to I . O . Snopes as the man whom Jack Houston threw into the water tub in the blacksmith shop . H. 3. p. 3 1 4 : Ratliff tells about the horse in the house a few mornings later and exaggerates the impact of the horse . H. 4 . p . 331 : Mrs . Arms tid tells how she earned the five dollars weaving at night and wanted to buy her children shoes for winter with it. H. 5. p. 335 : Mrs . Tull tells Judge that the Texan gave the horse to Eck rather than selling it to him . H.

46 47

6. p. 335: Eck mentions that Quick left the gate open. H. 7. p. 336: Eck tells how the Texan sold the horses wi thout putting ropes on them , and then after he left , Quick left the gate open. H. 8. p. 341: Ratliff tells why he values the Old Frenchman place. H.

in The Town : -- ---

9. p. 3 : Flem comes into Jefferson in two -mul e wagon wi th wife and baby and small assortment of house furni shings . H. 10 . p. 3 : Ratliff owns part of Jefferson restaurant and travels the county in his buckboard as an agent for a sewing machine company . H. 11 . p. 4 : Physical description of Flem is repeated without change . H. 12. p. 4 : Ratliff travels around selling or swapping or trading anything , not just sewing machines. H. 1 3. pp . 4-5 : Ab Snopes's hi story as a horse trader is retold wi th some change s. H. 1 4 . p. 5: Flem and Ab 's appearance in Frenc hman 's Bend is re told with mention of Will Varner 's powerful position in the di strict. H. 15. p. 7: Flem' s ri se to power in the haml et is retold. H. 16. p. 8: Eula is presented as belle of the whole di strict. H. 17. p. 9: Chick explains Eula 's effect on any man . H. 18. p. 6: Chick tells about Flem and Eula 's marriage , but his story comes from Ratliff . The story differs from the_ one told in The Haml et in the following ways : The Haml et The Town - They were married in Jeffer - They were married in the next son in the afternoon. county at night . - Three young suitors left before - Young suitors left at about the marriage . the same time . - Flem and Eul a left the hamlet, - Flem and Eula left for Texas were married (after transfer of after a month . land and money) , and left Jeffer son all in one day . 48

19 . pp . 6-7 : The wild horses episode is retold briefly with mention that Flem was never definitely connected with the horses. Here , Eul a returns with Flem and the Texan ; in The Hamlet , Eula returned earlier . H. 20 . p. 7: Physical description of Ratliff is repeated. H. 21. p. 7: Ratliff admits to hi s involvement with the Old Frenc hman place and the buried money . H. 22 . p. 7: The hi story of the Old Frenc hman place is retold. H . 2J . p. 7: Ratliff gives hi s reason for getting involved. H. 24 . p. 7: Henry Armstid followed Flem and found him digging . H. 25 . p. 8 : Gavin guesses how they found bags of money and rushed to buy the property , with Ratliff paying with his half of the restaurant . H. 26 . p. 8 : They dug up silver. dollars , some rather old. H. 27 . p. 8: The osmosis of the Snopes into the hamlet is des. cri bed. H . 28 . p. 1 2: De Spain has scar which is attributed by the local story to a Cuban dice game axe-fight . T. 29 . p. 14: Eul a looks as though her clothes should burn off . H. JO . p. 15 : The town didn't know they didn't have or needed a power-plant superintendent . T. J1 . p. 15 : The town created the job. and appointed Flem to it . T. J2 . p. JO: Flem used Negro firemen to steal for him , but they

m .1. confederated and put the brass in the water tank . • JJ . p. JO : Auditors came in, and safety-valves were mi ssing. T. J4 . p. J1 : Flem pai d the auditors the amount they said was missing. T. JS . p. JJ : When you say Snopes in Jefferson you mean Flem Snopes. T . 36 . pp . J4-J5 : Ratliff retells the wild horses episode , espe cially hi s involvement with it. He says that Henry Armstid left the gate open rather than Quick as in The Hamlet, and he al so creates indecision on Eck' s part about which horse to chase , while in The Haml et Eck and the boy went after the free horse instantly . H. 49

J7 . p. J6 : I. O. Snopes is described by Gavin as a bigami st and full of proverbs in hi s talking . H. J8 . p. 36 : Gavin tells of I . O. going in the tub and hi s version differs from The Hamlet in the following ways : The Haml et The Town - The drenc hing occurs the - The drenc hing occurs some first morning any Snopes is in later morning . the blacksmith shop . Eck is there trying to build - Eck is not there . a fire . - Houston's horse threw I . O. - I. o. quicks the horse wi th into the tub . the first nail so Houston throws him in the tub twice . J9 . p. J7 : I. O. is installed as teacher in Frenc hman' s Bend . H. 40. p. 37 : The school is a one-room schoolhouse connected wi th Varner's power . H. 41. p. 37 : I. O.'s wife , a gray-colored woman , comes to the store wi th a five year old gray-colored boy . The boy was only six months old in The Hamlet. H. 42. p. 38 : Old man Trumball is reinstated into hi s blacksmith shop . H.

43 . p. 39 : I. O.'s first wife's relation to the Tulls is ex plained. T. 44 . p. 41: Ab Snopes's hi story as a horse stealer is repeated but as if he was hung . H, T. 45. p. 44 : Physical de scription of Ratliff is repeated, with Ratliff too damned shrewd , too damned intelligent . H, T. 46. p. 78 : Chapter heading picks up end of last chapter . T. 47. p. 78: Mink was the first Snopes in jail , waiting for trial for the murder of Jack Houston. H. 48. p. 78 : Houston's difficulty with hi s wife is briefly re told along wi th mention of her death and hi s, and of Houston's pride and solitariness . H, T. 49. p. 79 : Mink's mistake was not waiting until Flem was back to shoot Houston. H. 50

50 . p. 79 : Mink shot Houston from bushes with his old gun . H. 51 . p. 79 : Mink could not wait any longer to kill Houston. H. 52 . p. 79 : Houston's horse ran off to Varner 's store . H. 53 . p. 79 : Mink tried to hide the body and the gun . H. 54 . p. 80 : Fishermen found the gun. H. 55 . p. 80 : Mink tried to get out of the sheriff's surrey . H. 56. p. 80 : Mink wai ted in jail for Flem with hi s hands at the window. H. 57 , p. 8 1: Mink craned hi s neck to look around in the court room . H. 58 . p. 84 : Gavin asks his brother-in-law how else he could learn to fight than by fighting . T. 59 . pp . 94-95 : Gavin tells Eula in his office his version of the buggy fight . H. 60 . p. 1 00 : Mccarron was never seen or heard of in Frenchman' s Bend before that summer . H. 61 . p. 100 : Ratliff tells about the buggy fight and contends that both Eula and Hoake fought , that they made love on the road (contrary to The Hamlet) , and that Eula lost her virginity and conceived Linda at the same time . Ratliff does not mention the rebroken arm . H. 62. p. 102: Gavin had been talking about the German university for two years as a ni ce place to go if you wanted to go to a place like that . T. 63 . p. 102: Gavin asked his father what he could .do after the suit. T. 64 . p. 10J: Chapter heading picks up end of last chapter. T. 65. p. 104 : Men only think that they lose Hel en. T. 66 . p. 105 : Men only think that they lose Helen . T. 67 . p. 107 : Eck Snopes wore a steel brace where a log broke his neck . T. 6 8 . pp . 107-108: Eck wa s night watchman at the oil tank at the depot. T. 69 . p. 113: Ratliff traded hi s buckboard and team for a Mo del T. T. 5 1

70 . p. 114 : Ratliff makes a similar comment on losing Helen. T. 7 1. p. 124 : Grover Cleveland Winbush lost his half of the restaurant to Flem . T. 72. p. 129 : I . O. Snopes is a bigami st. H, T. 7J . p. 1J2: Chapter heading picks up end of last chapter . T. 74 . p . l JJ : Nature could no t allow two Eulas in a place as small as Jefferson in any short time period. T . 7 5 . p. l JJ : Maggi e said you don't marry Helen; you just commit suicide for her . T. 76 . p. 1)6 : Flem became vice-president of Col . Sartoris's bank . T. 7 7. p. 1 40: Bayard Sartoris' s post-war history and Flem's rise to the vice-presidency are reviewed. T. 78 . p. 1 4J: Eck was blown up hunting for lost child. T. 79 . p. 1 4J: Ratliff is "too damned intelligent ." T. 80. p. 1 4): Wallstreet Panic Snopes was discovered by teacher . T. 8 1. p. 1 44 : Wall could change his name . T. 8 2. p. 1 45: Gavin reviews Wall 's business career and says that he became owner when the previous owner die d. Earlier in The Town, the man sold Wall the store and retired. T. BJ. p. 1 66 : Flem got shut of one Snopes on a murder charge . H, T. 84 . p. 177 : Ratliff again says Gavin missed it. T. 85 . p. 180 : Jefferson is socially small . T. 86 . p. 192 : Chapter heading picks up end of last chapter . T. 87. p. 217 : Linda c ame to Sunday dinner at the Mall isons . T. 88. p. 228 : Gavin says Varner gave Flem the Old Frenchman place as Eula's dowry . T.--Ratliff 's new story of this trading follows . 89 . p. 228 : Flem came back from Texas wi th wil d horses. H, T. 90 . p. 228 : Ratliff gave his half of the Jefferson res taurant and , along with Henry Armstid, bought the Old Frenc hman place . H , T. 91 . p. 2JJ : Mr s. Hait lives alone in a house painted the same color as all the railroad stations and boxcars . T. 52

92. p. 234 : I. 0. Snopes was blacksmith in Frenchman 's Bend. H, T. 93 . p. 269 : Gavin reviews I. O.'s and Montgomery Ward's careers in Jefferson and their eviction from town by Flem . T. 94. p. 271 : The Old Frenc hman place--worn out land, ruined garden, remains of house pulled down plank by plank for firewood--was given by Varner as Eula's dowry . H, T. 95 . p. 271 : Flem was reduced to the old salted gold mine trick to unload the Old Frenc hman place on Armstid and Ratl iff. H, T. 96 . p. 271 : Flem gave Eula 's child a name and moved mother and daughter away from the old scene . H, T. 97 . p. 273 : Gavin reviews De Spain's influence on Flem' s Jefferson career at the power plant , adding his own opinions . T. 98. p. 274 : Gavin reviews the circumstances which lead Flem to the bank vice-presidency , again adding his own opini ons . T. 99 . p. 282 : Gavin reviews Wallstreet Panic 's gro cery store success and di scusses his wife 's attitude toward the family name , contradicting Ratliff ( p. 1 49, Town) . T. 100 . p. 283 : Flem bought the Old Frenc hman place from Varner and then sold it at high profit. T ( Ratliff , p. 228) . 101 . p. 28 5: Gavin reports on Matt Levitt , Linda's Golden Gloves admirer . T. 102. p. 286 : Women are not interested in truth or romance but in facts which fit with other facts . Gavin has picked this idea up from Eula and Ratliff . T. 103 . p. 287: Gavin evicted the garage mechanic ( Matt Levitt) . T. 104. p. 288 : Eula surrendered to her lover after a gang fight . H, T.

105. P· 291 : Linda was away at the University . T.

106. P· 291 : Fl em moves about town in his planter's hat and minute bow tie . T. 53

107 . p. 291 : Flem traveled the road between Jefferson and Frenc hman 's Bend eighteen years before when it was only a dirt road . H. 108. p. 2921 Flem traveled the dusty road into Jefferson in a mule-drawn wagon with his wife , daughter, a few sticks of furni ture , and the deed to Ratliff's half of a Jeffer son restaurant and Henry Armstid' s money paid for the Old Frenchman place where Flem had buried silver dollars where they could find them . H, T. 109 . pp . 296 -97 : Fl em beat Ratliff out of his half of a ca� owned by Ratliff and Grover Winbush. H, T. 110 . p. 297 1 Grover Winbush has an interest in Frenc h postcards . T. 111 . p. 298 : Linda is off at the University at Oxford even though not at an Eastern college like Gavin hoped. T. 112. p. 299 : Will Varner came into town to Flem' s house at four o'clock in the morning . T. 113. p. 344 : The Mallisons call their library the office even though Maggie protested for a while . T. 114 . p. 3 68 : 91arenc e and Doris Snopes are gray-colored. T. in The Mansion s

115. p. J: The jury found Mink guil ty and the judge sentenc ed him to life in The Hamlet, but not presented in direct dialogue as here . 116 . p. J: Mink di dn't listen to the proceedings of hi s trial ; he was too busy looking around . H. 117 . p. J: The judge asked Mink if he was guilty and Mink was too busy to answer. T. 118. p. J: Mink called out in court for someone to go get Flem . H, T. (In Hamlet, Mink only asks if Flem is there .) 119. p. J: Mink was handcuffed at the trial . H, T. 120 . p. J: While in jail , Mink had often looked out with his hands at the bars of the window. H, T. 121 . p. J: Mink knew he should wait for Flem before killing Houston and knew why Flem couldn' t come back . H, T. 54

122. p. 4: Everyone in Frenchman' s Bend had seen through Flem and Eula's Texas trip . H, T. 123 . p . 4: Mcc arron was around the spring and summer before , following Eula like the other boys . H, T. 1 24. p. 4: Everyone knew Varner was going to have to find Eula a husband soon. H, T. 125 . p. 4: Flem was the only man who had ever stood up to Will Varner and had won , and had go tten himself a place in Varner 's store , eliminating Jody. H, T. 126. p. 4: All the men in Frenchman' s Bend have been up set at Eul a just walking past them. H, T. 127. p. 4 : Flem got a free deed to the Old Frenc hman place for marrying Eula. H, T. 128 . p. 4: Mink knew Flem and Eul a would have to stay out of the haml et until months after the baby was born . H, T. 129 . p. 5: Mink couldn't wait any longer than he did to kill Houston. T. (Ratliff , p. 79) . 130 . p. 5 : Mink couldn't wait any longer . T , M.

131. p. 6 : Mink couldn't wait any longer . T, M. 132. p. 7: Houston was arrogant and proud . H, T. 133 . p. 7: Houston's wife 's death is retold. H, T. 134. p. 7: Houston killed the horse that killed his wife and then bought another horse just like it. H. 135 . p. 7: Houston acted very gri eved over hi s wife's death . H, T. 136. p. 7: Houston rode up and down the road wi th hi s hound following him . H. 137 . p. 8: Houston bought another horse just like the one that killed hi s wife . H, M. 138 . p. 9: Mink lived in a run-down tenant cabin. H . 139 . p. 10 : Houston sulked around for four years after hi s wi fe 's death . In thi s book Houston has both a man and a woman as servants ; in The Hamlet, he let the black woman go . H , T. 14o . pp . 26-27 : Mink knew Flem woul dn't be back because of the baby which would have to look younger than it was when they got back . H, T, M. 55

1 41. p. 32 : A sewing-machine agent named Ratl iff owned � back street res taurant . H, T. (Introduces Ratliff to thi s book) . 1 42. p. 33: De Spain owned a red racer even though Col . Sar toris had a law passed against cars in Jefferson after Buffaloe's car scared hi s team. T. 1 43 . p. 4o : Chapter Two begins with the same words that began the book . M. 1 44 . p. 4o: Mink waited for weeks in jail with his face and hands at the window. The verb 11 craned11 was used in The Town by Ratliff to describe Mink's looking around the courtroom . H, T, M. 1 45. p. 4o:Min k' s hands look white at the window at night . T. 1 46. p. 4o:Min k yelled out , trying to get some one to get Flem . H, T, M. 1 47. p. 41: The judge asked Mink if he was guilty and he was too busy to answer . _T, M. 1 48. p. 41: Lawyers pleaded intensely at Mink' s trial . H. 1 49. p. 41: Mink , handcuffe d, glanced around wi th hi s expres sion ge tting increasingly concerned as the trial continues. H. (The trial in The Hamlet lasts only one and a quarter days ; here it takes a full three days) . 150 . p. 41 : The jury said Guil ty and the Judge said Life . M. 151 . p. 52 : Judge Long woul d have had Montgomery Ward on the first train out of Jefferson toward a federal peni tentiary if he saw just one of the Frenc h postcards . T. 152. p. 53 : Flem was a banker and had to deal in respectabili- ty . T. 153 . p. 53 : Grover Winbush closed up the studio by being caught slipping out the door . T. 154 . p. 53 : Actually , postcard busine ss was wrecked the minute Grover Winbush became night marshal . T. 155. p. 53 1 Night marshal job only involved leaning on a lamp post looking at the empty Square . T. 156 . p. 54 : Montgomery Ward named his busine ss Atelier Monty . T. 56

157 . p. 54 : Gavin and the county sheriff walked in on Mont gomery Ward one morning . T. 15B. p. 55 : Two men robbed the drug store , but no one could find Winbush . By the time Winbush slipped out of Mont gomery Ward 's studio, the robbers had gone home . T. 159 . p. 56: A preacher has a no se for sin and fried chicken. M. 160 . p. 57 : Two men robbing the drug store in plain view of Jefferson folks (but Winbush couldn't be found) exposed Uncle Willy Chri stian by rifling his prescription desk . T. 161 . p. 57 : Ratliff tells of Flem "grazing on up through Jef ferson" after he "eased" Ratliff and Winbush out of their ca� . T. 1 6 2. p. 5B : Flem is a bank vice-president . T. 163. p. 65 : Flem wears whi te shirt and cheap bow tie like he wore in from Frenchman' s Bend . T. 164 . p. 65 : Montgomery Ward reviews Flem's life in Frenchman 's Bend with referenc e to hi s hats. H, T. 165 . p. 65 : Flem chewed tobacco when he was Varner 's clerk . H, T. 1 66 . p. 66 : Montgomery Ward reviews Mink' s time in jail , his wait for Flem (and why) , and Mink's yelling in the court room . H, T, M. 1 67. p. 71 : Wesley Snopes, as a revival song leader , was caught after church with a fourteen-year-old girl and tar-and feathered out of town . T. 1 6B. p. BJ : Montgomery Ward says "Flem was parlaying hi s wife into the presidency of the bank." T. 169 . p. B3 : Clarenc e Snopes, the state senator, takes Virgil around Memphi s betting on Virgil 's sexual prowe ss with di sbelievers . M. 170 . p. BJ : Byron was in Mexico with the bank 's money . T. 171 . p. BJ : Wesley lead hymns and played around wi th eleven year-olds . T, M. 172. p. B7 1 I. O . was Clarenc e and Montgomery Ward's father by "simultaneous bigamy." T. 173 . p. B7 : Montgomery Ward asserts that Eck and Wallstreet and I Admiral Dewey don' t belong to the Snopes. M . 57

/ 174 . p. 93 : Flem is a rich man , pre sident of a bank and living in a big house . T, M. 175. p. 110 : Gavin's hair started turning gray by 1919 when he came back from the war in France . T. 176. p. 113: Gavin took half of Chick's out-of-school time to take notes to Linda for ice cream parlor dates. T. 177 . p. 113: Gavin got involved wi th Linda's career. T. 178 . p. 114 : Jefferson is a small town where everyone knows everyone else . T. 179 . p. 114 : Everyone who had seen Eula wonders that she could have a child by any singl e man . T. 1 80. p. 114 : Gavin adopted Linda's career, an unavoi dable action after he first looked at Eula . T. 1 8 1. p. 115: Eula attracted Gavin and all of Jefferson just by walking through the Square . T. 1 8 2. p. 115: Flem had "grazed up" Will Varner and Frenc hman 's Bend . H, T, M. (specific words) . 1 83. p. 115: Flem beat Ratl iff out of hi s half of the ca� owned wi th Grover Winbush . H, T, M. 184 . p. 115: Flem had to stop over in Jefferson to get the other half from Grover Winbush. T. 185. p. 116: Gavin has a Master of Arts from Harvard and a Doctor of Philosophy from Hei delberg . T. 1 8 6 . p. 116: Eul a never needed an education ; she was trouble enough for any man aro und just with what she was born with . H. 1 87. p. 117: The other half of the caf6 (Winbush's half) is dangling . T, M. 1 88 . p. 117: Eula walked across the Square one afternoon and Gavin saw her . T, M. 189. p. 117 : Mccarron was the prime topi c of conversation "that spring ." H, T. 190 . p . 117 1 The deno uement took place beyond the creek bridge below Varner 's bridge one night in July . H, T. 191 . p. 117 : Mccarron came in to town out of nowhere . H, T . ' '!

5 8

192. p. 117 : The local boys (with county name s) had been hitching their buggies and saddle mules to Varner 's fenc e for a year . H.

; :: 193 . p. 118 : Local boys courting Eula __ beat up and sent off any stranger in the thicket by the creek bridge . H. 194 . p. 119 : Mccarron was different from the others , and ' probably had Linda pregnant before anyone realized it. T. 195 . p. 123: EUla stood up in the buggy and hit boys over the head wi th the buggy whip handle. H, T. 196 . p. 123 : The next summer Flem brought back wild Texas ponies which demolished a lot gate . This event is ahead in the time of the story Ratliff is telling but already known to trilogy readers . H, T. 197 . p. 124 : Ratliff tells more about the buggy fight . The three versions compare as follows : - Eula helps fight in all three (The Haml et and Ratliff 's versions in The Town and The Mansion) . Ratliff does report that others think Eul a didn't fight . - They make love at Varner 's after the arm is set in The Hamlet; in The Town;Ratliff says they moved the buggy a short distance up the road ; in The Mansion, they make love right there wi thout moving the buggy . ,j - Eul a loses her virgini ty and conceives Linda at the same time in all three versions . - Eul a 's holding McCarron up while they make love is mentioned in all three versions . 198. p. 125 : Mccarron had one fateful look at Eula just like De Spain and Gavin. T.

199 . P• 126 : There was no big uproar at the Varner house when Eula was found to be pregnant . H. 200 . p. 1 26 : The wedding was announced just before it took place ; local boys left Frenchman 's Bend quickly wi th the hopes of looking guilty ; Eula and Flem were married; they left for Texas after a week of bartering over the dowry, wi th the hopes of bringing back a reasonably legal -looking baby . Compare thi s version with the other two (#18 above 59

in thi s appendix. ) H, T. 20 1. p. 127 : Flem changed money into silver dollars to bury in the Old Frenchman place rose garden where the men couldn't help but find them . ( The exact amount of money buried fluctuates with all the different versions . ) H, T. 20 2. p. 127 : Flem and Eula moved to Jefferson so that Flem coul d get Grover Winbush's half of the c af6 he used to own wi th Ratliff . H, T, M. 20J . p. 127 : Flem and Eula and baby lived behind the caf� in a canvas tent . T, M. 204 . p. 127 : Eula walked across the Square where De Spain could see her . T, M. 205. p. 127 : Mccarron was the only child of a wealthy woman and had been educated at eastern schools. H, M. 20 6 . pp . 127-28 : De Spain went to Cuba with the army and came back with a scar on one cheek . The story arose when he wa s running for mayor that the scar was from an axe in a crap game fight . T. 207 . p. 128 : De Spain was mayor, president of Sartoris's bank , and involved with Eula . T. 208 . p. 128 : Flem "grazed gently on up them new Jefferson pastures." M. 209. p. 128 : Flem lived wi th family in tent behind caf6 . T, M. 210 . p. 128 : Grover Winbush found out one day he didn't own half of that caf� either . T, M. 211 . p. 128: Rouncewells didn't own the hotel any more ; Flem lived there . T. 212. p. 128: A new Snopes came into town to live in the tent and fry hamburgers . T. 21J. p. 128 : Flem was superintendent of the power plant . T. 214 . pp . 128-29 : De Spain saw Eula when he was mayor of Jef ferson. T, M. 215 . p. 129 : De Spain owned a red brass-trimmed E .M.F. road- ster . T. 216 . p. 129 : The Cotillion Ball fight between De Spain and Gavin i s retold. T. 60

217 . p. 1291 Gavin asks hi s brother-in-law how he can learn to fight except by trying . T. 218 . p. 129 1 Flem' s involvement with the mi ssing brass is retold, complete with his payment to the auditors . T. 219 . p . 130 1 Flem replaced the missing safety valves. T. 220 . p . 130 1 Gavin brought a suit about the brass which was turned over to Gavin's father and deal t with in secret in chambers . T. 221 . p. 130 : After the suit, Gavin asks his father "What can I do now, Papa?" T. 222 . p. 130 : Gavin takes train to leave for school in Germany . T. 223 . p. 130 : Gavin had already graduated from Harvard and the law school at Oxford. T, M. 224. p. 130 1 Gavin passes the torch ( of Snopes -watching) to Ratliff before he leave s . T. 225 . p. 130 1 Ratliff asserts again that Gavin can't lose Helen; "Likely it' s because she dont want to ." This last sen tence is verbatim from page 102, The Town. T. 226 . p . 133 1 Eula "adopted" Gavin's life into Linda's future . T, M. 227 . p. 133 : Linda finds out that Gavin has adopted a part of her life into hi s, or of hi s life into hers . T, M. 228 . p. 133 1 Gavin is a bachelor lawyer , the county attorney , twi ce Linda's age . T. 229 . pp . 133-34 : Jefferson is so small everyone knows what you are doing . T, M . 230 . p. l34 1 Gavin and Linda met one or two afternoons a week in the drug store , and Linda ate a soda or a banana split while Gavin's Coke sat untouched. T. 231 . p. 1.34: Their "coinci dental accidental 0 meetings didn' t manage to look very accidental , even wi th Gavin's elabor ate plans . T. 2.32 . p. 1.35 : De Spain became president of the bank when Col . Sartoris let his grandson have a car accident wi th him in the car and died. The bank was established by Col . Sartoris, De Spain' s father , and Will Varner . T. 6 1

233 , p. 135 : Flem became vice-president of the bank at the same time , after being the ex-superintendent of the power plant . T, M. 234 . p . 135 : Flem moves from cloth cap that he wore when he came to Jefferson to a black felt planter's hat . The story , "legend, " was that he sold the cloth cap to a Negro boy for ten cents . T, M. 235 , p. 136 : As Linda grows up , she and Gavin still meet for ice cream and he lends her books . Jefferson figured it knew what Gavin was up to , and Eul a knew what she wanted. T. 236 . p. 137 : Gavin didn't just want to train her up and marry her . T. 237 , p. 137 : Gavin had to be the only one to save her from Snopesism. T. 238 . p. 137 : Gavin wanted to get Linda out of Jefferson, if not out of Missis sippi altogether. T. 239 , p . 137 : Everyone in town knew what Flem' s hold on De Spain was that got him both the superintendency and the vice presidency . T. 24o . pp . 137 -38 : Everyone knew De Spain had to take Flem along to get Varner 's vote to make himself president . T. 241. p. 138 : Will Varner would like to get back at Flem for hi s success in getting money out of the Old Frenchman place that Flem sold to Ratliff, Bookwright , and Armstid for all their (specifi ed) property and money . H, T, M. 242. p. 138 : As long as Eula was married to Flem , Linda had a name and an establi shment . T, M. 243. p. 138 : Flem knew that onc e Linda left town for good or was marri ed, Eula woul d leave Flem and his sy stem woul d collapse . T. 244 . p. 138 : Gavin believed Flem would let Linda move away (to where she could marry and then Eula woul d leave and he woul d be fini shed) . T, M. 62

245. p. 138 : Gavin had been giving Linda books to read for qui te a while . When she was a senior in high school , he sent off for catalo gue s from select schools for her . T. 246. p. 138: Linda went to school by the back ways , the alleys, to avoid Gavin. T. 247. p. 139: Gavin called on Eula to talk about Linda and the colleges. T. 248. p. 139: Flem' s only hold on Varner 's money was Eula, and hi s only hold on Eula was Linda . T. 249. p. 139 : Eula only put up wi th Flem for eighteen years because of Linda . T. 250 . p. 139 : Eula tells Gavin that Linda can't go off to school but he can marry her . This is Ratliff's specula tion but agrees with Gavin's version . T. 251 . p. 1 40: Eula uses Gavin' s name for the first time : "Marry her , Gavin." Again, thi s is Ratliff's speculation but agrees wi th Gavin in thought tho ugh wrong in time . T. 252 . p. 1 41: Linda graduated and went to the local Seminary the next fall . T. 253 . p. 1 41: Then in the mi ddl e of the school year Linda sud denly entered the University at Oxford , miles away where all those eligible bachelors were to try to marry her . In The Town, Linda goes to Oxford after a year and a hal f at the Seminary ; here it is in the middle of her first year . T. 254 . p. 1 41: Eula was dead and De Spain had left town for good (thi s is told with these few words) . T. 255 . p. 1 41: Flem was now president of the bank and living in De Spain's re juvenated house . T. 256 . p. 1 41: Linda had gone off wi th her New York husband to fight in the Spani sh war . M. 257 . p. 1 41: Flem was able to get what he wanted from Linda because she had already given up . Eula told Gavin in The Town that Linda had given up . 258 . p. 1 41: Linda went to the Seminary for three months . M. 63

P• 1 42: T. p. 1 4.3: p. 1 4.3: p. 1 4.3: 64

273 . p. 1 44 : Gavin told Ratliff that Linda went to an Oxford lawyer. T. 274 . p. 1 44 : Ratliff stopped with Flem at Varner 's house when Varner would have been at the store . T. 275 . p . 1 44 : Mrs . Varner gave the paper to Will at their two o'clock breakfast . T. 276 . pp . 1 44-45: By sunup Will was hollering in Flem' s house in Jefferson until Eula qui eted him . T, M. 277 . p. 1 45: De Spain has scar on his face he may have got fighting in Cuba or from an axe in a card fight . T, M. 278 . p. 1 45: Eula had to decide whether a suicide or a whore would be better as Linda's mother. T. 279 . p. 246 : Eula went to the beauty parlor for the first time the day she killed herself. T. 280. p. 246: Eula killed herself after a normal supper . T. 281. p. 246: Gavin and Maggie drove to Oxford and brought Linda home . T. 282 . p. 247: Gavin arranged the funeral , with Methodi st minis- ter from Frenchman 's Bend who had baptized Eula. T. 28) . p. 246 : De Spain left town right after the burial . T. 284 . p. 246 : Flem took over De Spain 's house after a while. T. 285. p. 247: Gavin was appointed Linda's trustee by Will Varner. T. 286 . p. 247: Gavin worked on Eula 's headstone medallion which had to be made in Italy , and Flem woul dn't let Linda leave until it wa s set up . Thi s version includes more details of Gavin's efforts . T. 287 . p. 248: Gavin had complete control over Linda's money . T, M. 288 . p . 248: Flem and Linda lived in De Spain's house . T, M. 289. p. 248: Flem bought a car he couldn' t drive but Linda drove it occasionally . T. 290 . p. 248: Ratliff got Chick to come to the cemetary with him and Gavin because he figured it might take them both to handle Gavin. T. 65

291 . p. 248: Linda and Flem were at the cemetary in Flem' s car wi th the black driver who was going to drive Linda to the New York train in Memphis. T. 292. p. 1 49: Flem sat in the car , chewing , with his hat that didn't look like it belonged to him . T. 293 . p. 1 49: Linda sat beside him in dark dress and hat and her hands in whi te gl oves shut into tight fists . T. 294 . p. 1 49: Even the face on the monument could effect any man as Eula 's own face had . T. 295 . p. 1 49: The motto whi ch Flem picked is repeated. T. 296 . p. 1 49: Flem leaned out the car window , spit, and told Linda she could go now . T. 297 . p. 1 49: On the drive back to the office, Gavin talks about foo tball (but with a different interest than in Chick' s version in The Town) . T. 298 . p. 1 49: Back at the office , Gavin fiddles ine ffectively with a corncob pipe . T. 299 . pp . 1 49-50 : Ratliff left them to get some alcohol , and then made Gavin a toddy . T. JOO . p. 150: Gavin complains about the waste of Eula 's death, especially because she was important to so many people . T. 30 1. p. 150 : Ratliff sugge sts that maybe she was bored and Gavin accepts the idea, crying , adding that she had the capacity to love but tried twice and failed twice to find someone brave enough to deserve and acc ept her love . T. 302. p. 151 : Gavin refers to Greenwi ch Village as a place without physical boundaries where people go in search of dreams . Ratliff 's response is in different words but expresses the same basic idea as his response in The Town . T. 303 . p. 152: Ab Snopes never came any closer to Jefferson than a hill two miles out from where he could see the water tank . T. 304 . p . 152 : Flem sent I. O. Snopes out of Jefferson for good. T. 66

305 . p. 152 : Flem sent Montgomery Ward to the penitentiary at Parchman where Mink already was {Mink had only lived in Jefferson for those few months while he was in jail) . T, M. 306 . p. 152 : Byron Snopes's four Indian children were sent back collect to Mexico as soon as anyone could get close enough to them (Byron had stolen from Colonel Sartoris's bank) . T. 307 . p. 153 : Wallstreet Panic and Admiral Dewey weren't ever really Snopes, since Wall only wanted to run a success ful gro cery business. T. 308 . p. 155 : Flem ·looked the same as he had for twenty years : "same little snap-on bow tie ," new hat , with the story told of the cloth cap being sold, making his planter's hat ten cents cheaper than anyone else's. H, T. 309 . p. 155 : Flem had furni ture that a Memphi s expert told him was right for a bank vice-president . T. 310 . p. 155 : Flem sat before the fireplace "not doing nothing" with hi s hat on and chewing air , with a description of how he gave up tobacco and then gum . T. 311 . p. 156 : De Spain had a red E.M.F. racer. T. 312. p. 156: De Spain, and Sartoris before him , rode around the country looking at the mortgaged farms , but Flem didn' t do this. T. 313. p. 157 : Flem propped hi s feet on the unpainted ledge added to the carefully constructed mantel . T. 314 . p. 158: There was an unpainted ledge added onto the hand painted mantel (Ratliff adds his embellishments to this fact) . T, M. 315. p. 154 : The additional ledge on the mantel is compared to the water tank that might still hold the brass the Negro firemen put in it ; they are both Jefferson legends , part of the Snopes legend . This recapitulation demon strates two previously known facts linked in a new, in formative way . T. J16. p. 166 : The spell ing of Ratliff 's family name altered wi th the move west, but the eldest son was still named Vladimir Kyrilytch and must spend half his life keeping hi s name a secret . T. 317 . p. 181 : Pat Stamper had a wi de reputation in horse- and mul e-trading circles. H. 318. pp . 188-89 : Bayard Sartoris's life is reviewed, wi th these details repeated from The Town : Bayard came back in the spring of 1919 and bought the fastest car ; his family picked out Narcissa to marry Bayard, hoping to save his neck ; his brother was already shot down ; Colonel Sartoris rode wi th him to slow him down, even though he hated cars; Col onel Sartoris had a heart condition and died in a car accident with Bayard ; Bayard was killed testing an airplane . This version adds the information of Narcissa's pregnancy , and Gavin's notion (di sagreed wi th by Maggie) that Bayard. was bored. T. 319 . p. 194 : Gavin attended to Meli sandre Backus when a young girl in the same way that he later attended to Linda . 1r. 320 . p. 195 : Gavin went off to Harvard, to Hei delberg , and to war ; Melisandre got married. T. 3 21 . p. 195 : Melisandre married "a New Orleans underworl d big shot named Harri ss wi th two esses." T. J22 . p. 195 : Melisandre 's father spent all hi s time sitting wi th a bottl e of whisky and a volume of Horace. T. 323 . p. 195 : Meli sandre 's husband was named "Harri ss wi th two esses." T, M. J24 . p. 195 : Mr . Harri ss was a New Orleans importer. 1r. 325 . p. 196: Harri ss wi th both hi s esses came to Jefferson. T, M. 326 . p. 196 : He turned thE� Backus plantation into a Long Island horse farm with miles of white panel fence . T. 327 . p. 197 : Harriss) with his two esses and two children, wa s shot in a New O rlean 's barber's chair . T, M. 68

328 . p. 198: Chick feels that Linda looks as if she is just barely decently dressed--a previo usly recurrent image of Eula. T. 329 . p. 202: Chick reviews a section of Flem' s life : Linda the only child; Linda couldn't go to school at first, then suddenly off to the University at Oxford ; wanting to be bank president ; town knows that current president is wife 's lover ; wife went to beauty parlor for the first time and then shot hersel f; past bank president left town ; becomes bank president , lives in De Spain's house ; Linda couldn't leave until she saw her mother's memorial completed (motto repeated) ; Flem tells Linda she can go now . T, M. 330. p. 203 : Linda is inviolate . M. 331. p. 206: Ratliff made the blue shirts that he alway s wore . T, M. 33 2. p. 210 : Jefferson is a small town where it is difficult to have secrets . T, M. 333 . p. 216: Linda gave Gavin a gold cigarette lighter with the initials GLS on it even though he didn't have a middl e ini tial , and he never used the lighter because he was convinced that he could taste the fluid. M. 334 . p. 219 : Gavin said that Linda' s doom woul d be to love once and lose the man and then to mourn. . M. 335 . p. 220 : Flem didn' t smoke , drink, or chew tobacco , but steadily chewed air . M. 336. p. 222 : Flem sat wi th his feet propped on the unpainted ledge and chewe d what Ratliff called a chunk of French- man' s Bend air. M. 337 . p. 226 : Flem wears black banker' s hat and a little snap- on bow tie and steadily chews a chunk of Frenchman 's Bend air . T, M. 338 . p. 228 : Flem wear s black banker's hat and bow tie and chews "his little cud of Ratliff' s Frenchman' s Bend air." T, M. 339. p. 230 : Linda is an inviolate bride of silence. M. 34o. p. 230 : Linda walks like a young pointer bitch just about to spot a covey of birds . M. 341. p. 231 : Ratliff , wearing a neat tieless blue shirt , cooks a meal well . T, M. 342. p. 233 : Linda woul d tear up her Communi st Party card "with passion and exul tation." M. 343. p. 255 : Melisandre has two children and the Long Island horse farm . M. 344 . p. 259 : Mink ge ts out of prison with only a ten-dollar bill , new overalls, hat , and shoes, and three dollars and eighty-five cents left from the forty dollars sent to him . M. 345. p. 259 : Mink finally realized that Flem wasn't go ing to help him , and he quit calling down from the jail window to anyone passing . H, T, M.

:!, 346 . p. 259 : Eighteen years before , Flem sent Montgomery Ward '' 'I ,,, to jail to trick Mink into trying to escape in woman's clothes, and Mink got caught and got another twenty years . M. 347. p. 298 : Byron Snopes stole from the bank and fled to Texas , later sending back C . O .D. four half-Indian children. T. 348. p. 298 : The story about Doris Snopes nearly burned at the stake by the Indian children is retold, but now it is material for Clarenc e Snopes' jokes. T. 349. p. 315 : Gavin asks Ratliff what exactly happene d at the political picnic , using the exact same words as before . M. 350 . p. 319 : Ratliff wears neat blue shirts he makes himself. T , M. 351 . pp . 319-20 : Chick knew Ratliff had two seventy-five-dollar Allanova ties at home , which he bought in New York ten years before when he and Gavin went to see Linda get mar ried. M. 70

352 . pp. 320-21 : Gavin said that the young people woul d have to save Mississippi from Clarence Snopes, because people like Gavin are too old and too tired to do it. M. 353 . p. 322 : Jefferson was merely holding its own in the Snopes dilemma . M. 354 . p. 351 : Linda has a dramatic collapsed whi te plume (with all the dragons dead) . M. 355 . p. 352 : Chick wondered when he saw Linda at the airport what she woul d look like naked, even tho ugh he was too young for her . M . 356 . p. 352 : Chick spent ten months as a Nazi pri soner of war . M . 357 . p. 352 : Charles thinks that the "too tall too thin" women sometimes surprise you when you see them naked. M. 358. p. 356 : Ratliff is Gavin' s special friend , a sewing machine agent and rural philosopher . H, T, M. 359 . p. 356 : Linda was off riveting ships when Gavin married "Melisandre Harri ss Backus that was as Thackeray says ." M. 3 60. p. 357 : Mr . Backus has hi s Horace and his whi skey . M 361 . p. 359 : Gavin finds refuge in "Melisandre Backus (that used to be) ." M. 36 2. p. 3 60 : Ratliff said that Linda would not marry Gavin, but that it would be worse than that . M. 3 63. p. 3 6 6: Flem just sat in hi s room with his feet propped on the unpainted wo oden ledge . Here , Flem "had had hi s Frenchman' s Bend carpenter-kinsman nail" the ledge up ; in other versions , the kinsman di d it by hi s own choice. M . 364 . p. J 67: Mink had only twenty years at first which woul d have let him out in 1928 , but in 1923 he tried to escape in a mother hubbard and a sunbonnet . M. 365 . p. 367 : Montgomery Ward , who had the dirty magic-lantern slides, was sent to Parchman in 1923. T, M. 366 . p. J67 : Gavin and Hub Hampton knew that Flem planted the liquor in Montgomery Ward's studio which got him a two years ' sentence at Parchman . They al so knew that Fl em 7 1

had two private interviews with Montgomery Ward before hi s trial , and that he put up the money for his bond I I and surety whi ch allowed Montgomery Ward to leave Jef � ·' I ferson for two days before going to Parchman . T, M. 3 67. p. 3 68: The Court leaned down to ask Mink his plea at hi s trial , and Mink replied "'Don' t bother me now ; can't you see I'm busy? '" and then shouted out to the crowd , asking for Flem Snopes. T, M. 368 . p. 372 : Gavin has a gold lighter monogrammed GLS even though Lis not his initial . M. 369 . p. 372 : Mr . Calvin Bookwright 's friendship is difficult to maintain, and al so nec essary to have in order to get some of hi s whi sky . M. J/O . p. 377 : Gavin realizes he is a coward. M . 371 . p. 378: By letting Mink out of jail witho ut the money , Linda has practically murdered Flem . Gavin and Ratliff mention this idea with almost the same words . M. 372. p. 38 6 : Gavin told Flem that Mink was free and was on hi s way to kill Flem, and Flem answered "Much obliged. " M. 373. p. 389 : Gavin asked Flem if he was going to tell Linda about Mink , and Flem answered "Why?" M. 374 . p. 397 : Mink worries about relying on fal se information, exclaiming "It's having to been away so long like I had to been." M. 375 . p. 411 : Flem sits in hi s room resting hi s feet on the special ledge Wat Snopes had nailed onto the firepl ace . Mink heard about the ledge while he was in prison. M . 376. pp . 412-13 : Mink hadn' t seen Flem in forty years but recogni zed the black planter's hat he had heard about in pri son, and the bow tie like Flem wore forty years before in Varner 's store . H, T, M. 377 , p. 413 : Flem just sits in hi s chair with his feet propped up and his hat on and chewing steadily . M. 378 . p. 41 4 1 Folks claim Linda is a nigger lover and a "com J momi st . " M. 72

379 . p. 41 6 : Linda speaks in a quacking duck 's voice like deaf people use . M. J80 . p. 420 : Wallstreet Panic Snopes never acted like a Snopes or looked like one . Wall began as a delivery boy in a gro cery store to get himself and his brother through school , and advanced to create a wholesale grocery supply house . Hi s further advance to a large chain of grocery store s is added as news to this account . T, M. J81. p. 429 : Gavin and Ratliff both refer to people in general as poor sons of bitches. Ratliff says "pore ," Gavin says "poor." M. J8 2. p. 4JO : Ratliff suggests that perhaps Flem let Mink shoot him because he was bored (like Eula) . He then calls Flem "the pore son of a bitch" and Gavin refers to "the poor sons of bitches that have to cause all the gri ef and angui sh they have to cause ." M.

Forecast :

in The Hamlet : 1 . p. 58: When Flem' s bow tie is first mentioned, it is told that he wore it or one just like it until the day he died, and that it was said later, after he was president of the Jefferson bank , that he had them made for him by the gross . 2. p. 67: When Eck is first mentioned, the narration rushes forward in hi s life to six months later when he married, and ten months past that when he had a new baby , along with a five-or-six year-old boy by a previous marriage . Then the narration returns to the time of hi s initial appearance in the hamlet. 3. p. 119 : Labove predicts accurately what kind of husband Eula will have : a weird creature "wi thout glands or desire " who woul d be unimportant in her life , "the crip pled Vulcan to that Venus ." 73

4 . p. 131 : While di scussing the youths hanging around Eula , the formal squire with horse and buggy who will crowd the youths aside next year is mentioned ("But that woul d

be next year ; now it was •••" ). The time of the horses and buggies is told about in depth on the very next page .

in --The ---Town : 5. p. 3: Chi ck tells that later Ratliff owned a Model T Ford . 6. p. 53 : Chi ck tells that Eul a sent Gavin to Heidelberg , and Gavin went to war , and when he returne d he was elected County Attorney . 7. p. 7 4 : Chick forecasts the time when Eula is dead, De Spain has left town wearing public mourning , and Jefferson has finally qui t talking about Eula. 8. p. 107 : Chick tells about Byron Snopes's robbing of the bank and escape to Mexico . 9. pp . 110-111 : When telling about the payment to Mrs . Eck Snopes for her husband 's death, it is sugge sted only briefly that Wallstreet was the one who used the money , "But that came later." 10 . p. 1161 Chick tells that Ratliff said Montgomery Ward brought home a substitute for his Paris canteen . 11. p. 120 1 Montgomery Ward returned to Jefferson after the war but only temporarily (not explaine d here why hi s stay was only temporary) . in The Mansion : 12. p. 32 : The Commercial Hotel is mentioned, with notice that "in two years hi s cousin Flem would own it though of course Mink didn't know that now . In fact, he had not even begun to think about his cousin yet ." This forecasting differs from the previous ones; the informa tion given here would be already known to a reader of The Town, but this is the first mention of it in The Mansion. r I 74

1J. p . 9J : Mink learned in jail that Linda went away , married, went to a war in Spain with her husband where he was killed and she was deafened, came home to live with Flem , got mixed up wi th a black Sunday school , and was al so mixed up with Communists, having fought on the communi st side of the war . 1 4 . p. 12J : Will 's buggy and horses were hitched to the lot gate by the wild horses brought from Texas when the horses demolished the gate . Thi s forecasting is like forecast ing #1 2: already known to a reader of The Hamlet and The Town, yet told in the language of forecasting and new to the reader of The Mansion. 15. p. 125 : When Hoake McCarron's involvement with Eula is reviewed, it is forecasted that Gavin and De Spain will have their own one look at Eula a year later . Again, thi s information is not news to a reader of the first two books of the trilogy but is told in the language of forecasting. WORKS CITED

Arpad, Joseph J. "William Faulkner' s Legendary Novels: The Snopes Trilogy. " Mi ssissippi Quarterly 22 (Summer 1 9 69) I 214-225. Beck, Warren. Man in Motion: Faulkner 's Trilogy. Madi son : University of Wi sconsin Press, 196 1. Brooks, Cleanth . William Faulkner : The Yoknapatawpha County . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963. Faulkner, William . The Hamlet. New York : Random House , Vintage Books, 194o . The Mansion. New York : Random House , 1959 ; Vintage Books , 1965 . The Town. New York : Random House , Vintage Books , 1957 , Gwynn , Frederick L. , and Blotner, Joseph L ., eds . Faulkner i� the University : Class Conferenc es at the University of Virginia 1957-1958 . New York : Random House , Vintage Books , 1965. Holmes, Edward M. Faulkner's Twice-Told Tale s: His Re-use of Hi s Material . The Hague : Mouton & Co., 1966. Leaf, Mark . "William Faulkner' s Snopes Trilogy : The South Evolves." In The Fifties: Fiction, Poetry , and Drama , pp . 51- 6 2. Edited by Warren French. Deland , Fla. : Evergreen-Edwards , 1970 . Leary , Lewis. Wi lliam Faul kner of Yoknapatawpha County . New York : Thomas Y. Crowell Company , 1973 , Marcus , Steven. "Snopes Revisited." In William Faulkner : �Decades of Criticism, pp . 3 82-391 . Edited by Frederick J . Hoffman and Olga W. Vickery . New York : Harc ourt , Brace & World, Inc., 1963 , Also in Partisan Review , Summer , 1957 , pp . 43 2-41.

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Meriwe ther, James B. "Bibliographical and Textual Studies of Twentieth-Century Wri ters ." In Approache s to the Study of Twentieth-Century Literature : Proceedings of the Conferenc e in the Study of Twentieth-Century Lit erature , First Session , pp . 33-51 . East Lansing , 196 1. Millgate , Michael . Th·? Achievement of William Faulkner. New York : Random House , 1966 ; Vintage Books , 1971 . Stein, Jean . "William Faulkner: An Interview." In William Faulkner : Three Decades of Criticism, pp . 67·-82. Edited by Frederick J. Hoffman and Olga W. Vickery . New York : Harc ourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1963. Al so in Wri ters at Work : The Paris Review Interviews , pp . 119-141 . Edited by Malcolm Cowley . New York : Viking Press, Compass Books edition , 1959 . Also in Pari s Review, Spring , 195 6 , pp . 28-52. Swiggart , Peter. The Art of faulkner's Novels. Austin, Texas : University of Texas , 1962 . Tuck, Dorothy . Crowell 's Handbook of Faulkner. Lewi s Leary , advisory ed. New York : Thomas Y. Crowell Company , 1964.