Go Down, Moses

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For the song, see Go Down Moses.

Go Down, Moses

Author	William Faulkner
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Random House (US)
Released	1942
Media Type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	365 p. (paperback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-679-73217-9 (paperback edition)
Followed by	Intruder in the Dust

Go Down, Moses is an episodic novel, by William Faulkner, consisting of seven short stories. The most prominent character and unifying voice is that of Isaac McCaslin, "Uncle Ike", who will live to be an old man; "uncle to half a county and father to no one."

Although originally published in 1942 as Go Down, Moses and Other Stories, Go Down, Moses is not a collection of stories but a unified, though seemingly fragmented, novel. It spans more than a century in the history of the McCaslin family, viewing their hardships and triumphs by examining their daily lives. Its plantation and the fictional Yoknapatawpha County are in Mississippi. It deals with such issues as slavery and race, the relationship between man and nature, the vanishing wilderness, stewardship versus ownership of land, and property and inheritance.

The title refers to the spiritual "Go Down Moses", which draws a comparison between the enslavement of blacks in America and the Jews in Egypt, as is evidenced by Molly(ie) Beauchamp's comments in the final story, where she repeats that her grandson has been "sold to pharoh". Also not coincidentally, Go Down, Moses is possibly Faulkner's most spiritual book, as shown in the connection to nature and the land in The Old People, The Bear, and Delta Autumn.

The Bear is also one of Faulkner's best-known short stories.

Contents 1 Stories in Go Down, Moses 1.1 "Was" 1.2 "The Fire and the Hearth" 1.3 "Pantaloon in Black" 1.4 "The Old People" 1.5 "The Bear" 1.6 "Delta Autumn" 1.7 "Go Down, Moses"

[edit] Stories in Go Down, Moses

[edit] "Was"

This story takes place in the childhood of McCaslin Edmonds, who is simply referred to as "the boy" and is understood to be the object of all masculine pronouns. The year is about 1859. "Cass" lives with his uncles Theophilus and Amodeus McCaslin, called "Uncle Buck" and "Uncle Buddy" respectively by most of the characters in the book. The story opens with the news that Tomey's Turl, a slave on the McCaslin plantation, has run away. But this is not the first time this has happened and Uncle Buck and Buddy know where he always goes, to Hubert Beauchamp's neighboring plantation to see his love, a slave girl named Tennie. Beauchamp himself has an unmarried sister, Sophonsiba, who seems romantically interested in Buck. Forced to stay the night to look for Tomey's Turl, Buck and Cass accidentally enter Sophonsiba's room, thinking it to be their room. This situation is exploited by Hubert who tries to pressure Buck into marrying Sophonsiba. Buck does not agree to Hubert's exploitive interpretation of events. Buck, Buddy and Hubert settle both their situation and that of Tomey's Turl by tying them to the outcome of a poker match. If Buck loses, he is to marry Sophonsiba and must agree to buy the slave girl Tennie so Turl will stop running away to see her. Buck loses, but coaxes Hubert into allowing another game, Hubert against Buddy, to determine the marriage and property issues. The stakes are changed many times, but in the end Buddy wins and the McCaslins take Tennie for free.

Uncle Buck and Sophonsiba Beauchamp eventually marry and become the parents of Isaac McCaslin, the central character who serves to unify most of the stories in the novel.

"Was" serves to introduce the reader into the practices and mentality of the antebellum South. Where Tomey's Turl is first introduced, he seems to be referred to more as an animal, such as a horse, than a person. When Hubert and Buck are taking bets on where Tomey's Turl will show up, the reader further sees how far removed from human the slaves are in the eyes of the owners. Additionally, it is possible Faulkner intends for the entrapping of Buck into marriage with Sophonsiba to be analogous to slavery, although Buck seems to accept it silently.

[edit] "The Fire and the Hearth"

Many generations later Lucas Beauchamp, the son of Tomey's Turl and Tennie, lives and works on the McCaslin plantation, now owned by Carothers "Roth" Edmonds, the grandson of McCaslin Edmonds (who is Isaac's elder cousin). Lucas discovers a gold coin on the land and becomes convinced of a large hidden treasure. Also, Lucas's daughter is being pursued, in spite of Lucas' wishes, for marriage by a poor black man George Wilkens. Lucas and George both distill liquor illegally and Lucas decides to prevent Wilkens' marriage to his daughter by telling Roth, since the liquor is being made on Roth's land. Roth calls the authorities, but they arrive just as Wilkens has put large jugs of whiskey on Lucas's porch. While Lucas's daughter cannot testify against him due to kinship, George Wilkens can. Consequently, Lucas is forced into allowing the marriage between Wilkens and his daughter to prevent Wilkens from having to testify against him. Lucas returns to the plantation, and cons a salesman out of a metal detector to search for the treasure he adamantly believes exists. The search becomes an obsession and Lucas's wife asks Roth for a divorce. Lucas initially agrees to the divorce, but recants at the last moment, deciding that he's too old. The treasure isn't meant for him to find.

Here, Faulkner explicates the nature of the relationship between the black and white sides of the McCaslin family tree. One recurring theme seems to the be the historical irony in the distribution of land, power, and surname: The Beauchamp name is taken by the black side of the McCaslin family, even though it is the side to descend through male blood, while the white descendants of Lucius Quintus Carothers McCaslin, the patriarch of the family, inherit his land and wealth notwithstanding their lineage coming from the patriarch's daughter. Lucas makes much of this difference as well as the fact that he is two generations closer to McCaslin than Roth, perhaps believing himself to somehow be of nobler blood and/or feeling that his descendence deserves more of McCaslin's original legacy.

Also touched upon is the impotence of the black man's actions. Lucas must persuade Roth, a man a generation younger than him and seemingly less deserving of the Carothers Plantation than Lucas is, to report George Wilkens in order for the tip off to be taken seriously by authorities.

[edit] "Pantaloon in Black"

Rider, an incredibly strong and large negro who lives on "Roth" Carothers McCaslin's plantation, is bereaved by the death of his wife. He digs his wife's grave at incredible speed. That night, Rider believes he sees the ghost of his wife. He returns to work at a sawmill the next day, but after chucking an incredibly large log down a hill, walks off the job and buys a jug of whiskey, drinking copiously. Rider goes to the tool room at the mill and confronts a man named Birdsong, who has been cheating negroes in dice for years. Rider cuts Birdsong's throat. The narrative shifts and the story is now in the home of the local sheriff, who is telling his disinterested wife the remainder of the story about Rider. The reader learns that after killing Birdsong, Rider is caught and arrested. In jail, he rips the door to his cell completely off and fights the other prisoners. Two days later Rider has been found, hanging from a bell-rope in a negro schoolhouse.

Perspective is important in this story. The first part is a third-person examination of the stages of grief, particularly denial and rage. The second is the sad tale of Rider's fate, as seen through the unreliable eyes of a callous white deputy sheriff who describes vividly what he cannot understand.

[edit] "The Old People"

[edit] "The Bear"

[edit] "Delta Autumn"

This story serves as a sort of sequel or coda to The Bear. Ike McCaslin and Roth Edmonds are in a car with some friends, headed for what Ike suspects will be the last of his annual hunting expeditions. The wilderness has receded in recent years, and it is now a long trip by automobile. Along the way they discuss the worsening situation in Europe, with Roth taking the cynic’s view against Ike’s idealism. At one point Roth slams on the brakes, as if he saw someone or something standing along the road. He seems preoccupied and out of sorts.

The men eventually arrive at their campsite and set it up under Ike’s direction. During the night, the old man thinks about his bygone life, and about how he and the wilderness are dying together.

The next morning the rest of the party set out to hunt while Ike chooses to sleep in. Roth gives him an envelope full of cash and mentions that a messenger might show up during the day. Ike is to hand over the money and “tell her I said ‘No.’” Later that morning a boat arrives. It carries a dark-eyed young woman who is obviously pregnant. Ike, ashamed of acting as a go-between in such a sordid matter, informs her that Roth has left and tries to thrust the money on her. She refuses to take it immediately, and remarks that Roth has abandoned her. Ike contemptuously asks how she could have expected anything different from him.

The conversation goes on. The young woman seems to know a great deal about Ike’s family and his own life, more than Roth would probably have told her. For she is part of the family herself, a distant Beauchamp cousin. Ike is horrified, more so by the miscegenation than by the incest. He tells the woman to marry a man “of her own race” and go far away. She replies that he is hardly qualified to advise anyone about love and leaves with the money.

Ike is still pondering this disturbing incident when one of his hunting companions runs in, frantically looking for a knife. The old hunter deduces that Roth has killed a doe and is trying to hide the evidence; another family sin that must be covered up.

[edit] "Go Down, Moses"

The book's final story begins with a census interview, which places the action in 1940. A well-dressed and well-spoken young black man identifies himself as Samuel Beauchamp, a native of Yoknapatawpha County. After completing the census form, he is led back to his cell on Death Row.

The action shifts to Jefferson, the Yoknapatawpha county seat. The protagonist is Gavin Stevens, a local attorney and amateur Biblical scholar and detective. Molly Beauchamp (Lucas' wife) has had a premonition of harm involving her long-lost grandson Samuel. She begs Stevens to discover his whereabouts and condition. He pities the old woman and accepts the job for a token fee.

Stevens soon discovers that Samuel Beauchamp is due to be executed in Illinois within hours. Without quite understanding why, he donates and collects enough money to bring the young man's body home for a proper funeral. That evening, Stevens drops by the memorial service, but quickly leaves because he feels out of place. The funeral is held two days later.

This is the shortest and most straightforward story in the book. The action is minimal. Its real importance lies in the fresh perspective it provides through Gavin Stevens, an educated and worldly man of the Twentieth Century who would eventually become a key figure in Faulkner's later fiction. Stevens is like several other white characters in Go Down, Moses in that his impression of blacks in general is quite paternalistic and tradition-bound. He is, however capable of change; at the story's end he experiences an epiphany when he learns that Molly wants the funeral to be covered in the local newspaper "just like anyone else's." His realization ends the book on a somewhat hopeful note; perhaps the old cycle of exploitation and wilfull ignorance will not last forever after all.

Gavin Stevens also interacts with the Beauchamp family in the novel Intruder in the Dust, in which he helps to save Lucas Beauchamp from a murder charge and a lynching. Some subtle clues seem to place that story a few years after "Go Down, Moses" .

Preceded by: The Hamlet

Novels set in Yoknapatawpha County

Succeeded by: Intruder in the Dust