Class and Race in Faulkners The Mansion Essay - 2602 Words

Class and Race in Faulkners The Mansion In The Mansion, the last of William Faulkers Snopes Trilogy, Flem Snopes is killed by his daughter Linda and his cousin Mink because he betrayed family and clan ties. Flem used his wife Eula for his success and finally drove her to suicide. He also took advantage of his daughter s love for him and tried to deprive her of her property. When Mink, detained on a charge of killing Jack Houston, desperately needed Flems help, the cousin didnt even appear. They took revenge on him for his betrayal. The story, though, as Cleanth Brooks pointed out (Brooks 227-28), can also be read as of a class struggle: a capitalist Flem is killed by a communist Linda and a poor white, a member of the†¦show more content†¦Hits all right he thought Hitll go this time.... (702-3) What was the motive, then, of the Houston killing, which we seem to be strongly asked to refer to when we examine the Flem case? The direct cause was trouble over Minks cow, but behind it there was a wide gulf between the rich and the poor, a class difference between the landed class and poor whites, which may have made Mink angry enough to kill Houston. He saw Houston as a durn surly sullen son of a bitch that didnt even know he was lucky: rich, not only rich enough to afford a wife to whine and nag and steal his pockets ragged of every dollar he made, but rich enough to do without a wife if he wanted: rich enough to be able to hire a woman to cook his victuals instead of having to marry her. Rich enough to hire another nigger to get up in his stead on the cold mornings and go out in the wet and damp to feed not only the beef cattle which he sold at the top fat prices because he could afford to hold them till then, but that blooded stallion too... (340). Each afternoon ... he would walk up the muddy road ... to watch Houstons pedigreed beef herd, his own sorry animal among them, move, not even hurrying, toward and into the barn which was warmer and tighter against the weather than the cabin he lived in, to be fed by the hired Negro who wore warmer clothing than any he and his family possessed, cursing into the steamy vapor of his own breathing,Show MoreRelatedA Rose For Emily Character Analysis1269 Words   |  6 Pages A Rose for Emily William Faulkner’s, A Rose for Emily, is an account from an eye witness’ perspective of the life and dilemma of a noble woman belonging to the bankrupt aristocratic family in the late nineteenth century. It’s a tale of a woman who due to her seclusion at the hands of her father and severe critique by the society turns into a mentally unstable person. The character of Emily is intriguing in its stubbornness of defying the changes around her. She is set in her ways and unwillingRead MoreReview Of Absalom, Absalom ! By William Faulkner1978 Words   |  8 Pagesbetter than his father and equal to the upper class. In a sense, he has a desire to be the son who has more than father and then be the the unsurpassed father himself. However, it is intriguing how Thomas expects his son to react to him, considering that he may hold the same mentality as his father. Nonetheless, this concept is out of reach since Thomas doesn’t place value his relationship with his father, therefore does the same with his children. Faulkner’s Thomas Sutpen is one who reject the pastRead MoreHistory of the Development of the Short Story.3660 Words   |  15 Pagesfiction such as Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame and from Sherwood Anderson’s characters in Winesburg, Ohio (1919). These settings and characters are often echoed in Southern fiction, with Civil War-era mansions and characters who are physically or mentally grotesque. Faulkner’s stories often fall under this category, as they probe the deep recesses of the human psyche while experimenting with fictional forms. In one piece, â€Å"That Evening Sun† (1931), Faulkner traces a surface story about