Go Down Moses And Other Stories

Following is a list of characters who appear in the novel, highlighting their relation or connection to the McCaslin family. List of Characters in Alphabetical Order: The Beauchamps represent the racially mixed side of the McCaslin family. He is forced to leave the McCaslin property after he was caught stealing.

He continues to have trouble with the law and is eventually executed for a murder he committed. Their son is Isaac McCaslin. Beauchamp, Tennie Tennie is a slave owned by the Beauchamps. They have three children and they will use the name Beauchamp rather than McCaslin. De Spain, Major He is a wealthy landowner on whose property the hunting expeditions take place.

He later sells some of the land to a lumber company. When Isaac McCaslin refuses his inheritance, Cass takes over managing the land and the family finances. He ultimately takes over managing the McCaslin family land and business dealings from his father. As an adult, he has an affair with a woman who turns out to be a distant relative of the Beauchamps. Eunice She is the slave who becomes pregnant by old McCaslin and has a daughter named Tomasina. She marries another slave, Thucydus. When she finds out that Tomasina is also pregnant by an incestuous relationship with old McCaslin, her own father, Eunice is so distraught that she drowns herself.

Isaac learns of her death in the family ledgers. Fathers, Sam Sam is the son of Indian chief Ikkemotubbe and a slave woman of mixed racial heritage. Sam is part Indian, part white, and part black. Hogganbeck, Boon Boon works for Major de Spain. Like Sam Fathers, his racial heritage is mixed.

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4. Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner.

Boon is described as being far less adept in the wilderness than Sam. McCaslin, Isaac Ike Isaac is perhaps the central character in the book. It is through Isaac that Faulkner explores some of the most important themes in the novel. Isaac eventually marries, but never has any children. He secures the land that will become the McCaslin plantation from a Native American Chickasaw chief by the name of Ikkemotubbe.

Lucius is the origin of the three branches of the family—the white McCaslins, the racially mixed Beauchamps, and the Edmonds descendants. Old McCaslin had three children: Theophilus, also known as Buck; Amodeus, also known as Buddy; and a daughter whose name the reader never learns. His daughter marries a man by the last name of Edmonds and it is her descendants that eventually take over the McCaslin land.

His overwhelming grief causes him to act irrationally, get drunk, and kill a white man in a card game. He is eventually killed for the murder. Thucydus He is a slave who marries Eunice after she becomes pregnant by old McCaslin. Old McCaslin leaves him ten acres of farmland, which will eventually be passed down to Lucas Beauchamp. The family uses the Beauchamp name and represents the racially mixed side of the McCaslins. She marries George Wilkins.

As children, they were both slaves owned by Miss Belle Worsham and even when slavery ended, Hamp stayed and worked for her for the rest of his life. Go Down, Moses tells the story of the McCaslins. He moved permanently to Oxford, Mississippi, in The South of his childhood heavily influenced and shaped the fictional world of Yoknapatawpha County he creates in his novels and short stories. He enlisted in the military in , but was ultimately rejected by the air service. He eventually returned to Oxford, and enrolled at the University of Mississippi where he started to write poetry and stories.

He published his first book, a collection of poems, entitled The Marble Faun in He won the Pulitzer Prize for the last two novels and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in While Faulkner achieved tremendous financial and critical success, he struggled with alcoholism and financial worries.

She had two children from a previous marriage, and she and Faulkner had another daughter together. He died in Byhalia, Mississippi on July 6, Buck, along with his nephew Cass Edmonds, venture to retrieve him. To get him back, there are series of card games between the owner of the plantation, Hubert Beauchamp, and the McCaslin brothers. In regards to narrative structure, what does Faulkner achieve by introducing us to these important characters with little to no context?

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Why does Faulkner begin the book this way? The life of Isaac McCaslin is essentially summarized in the first four paragraphs of the book. After reading the novel, go back and discuss this first section and its relevance to the rest of the novel. What important themes of the novel appear in these first pages and in the opening chapter as a whole?

The Fire and the Hearth Characters: The primary character in this chapter is Lucas Beauchamp. The chapter opens with a conflict between Lucas and his potential son-in-law, George Wilkins, over an illegal whiskey still. Lucas attempts to avoid getting in trouble over the still and manipulates a variety of characters to avoid punishment. In the end, he is caught and his daughter, Nat, ends up marrying the man who frustrates him the most, George Wilkins. There a number of digressions in this chapter which provide more details about the characters involved and the complicated family dynamics of the McCaslins.

In another section of the chapter, Lucas becomes obsessed with finding a supposed lost treasure of gold on the property. George Wilkins joins him in the search. Lucas finally forsakes this quest and remains with his wife. Are there thematic connections? What image does the reader get of Lucas Beauchamp in this story? How does the image of Lucas as a younger man contrast with the image of the Lucas at the end of the chapter?

It was as if he were not only impervious to that blood, he was indifferent to it. He resisted it simply by being the composite of the two races which made him, simply by possessing it. Is Lucas truly indifferent to his interracial heritage? How does Roth Edmonds feel about the interracial side of the family embodied by Lucas? Characterize the relationship between Roth and Lucas. What is the significance of the end of the story? Why does Lucas give up the search for the buried treasure? Is this detail important in regards to the rest of the book?

Is the bond Roth feels with Molly typical of the relationships between the two sides of the family? Does Molly feel the same kinship with Roth? The Beauchamp and the Edmonds families are related, but their relationship is deeply dominated by race. Discuss the dynamic between the races in this chapter.

Go Down, Moses Teacher’s Guide

What does Roth realize? What happens to the relationship between the two boys and why? Pantaloon in Black Characters: Literary critics debate the relevance of this chapter, as it appears to have little or no connection to the rest of the novel. The McCaslin family makes only a brief appearance as the owners of a cabin rented by the central character, Rider, in the chapter.

Thematically, however, connections can be made. Rather than articulate his deep sense of grief and pain, Rider goes to work at the sawmill and undertakes absurdly heavy tasks. After work, he gets drunk, ends up at a dice game, argues with a white man, Birdsong, and ultimately kills him. In the following section, a local deputy narrates the events as Rider is caught, jailed, and killed. Discuss the thematic elements that this chapter shares with the rest of the novel. For example, what does the story reveal about race relations and how does the relationship between the black and white characters in this story play out in the rest of the novel?

He stopped at once, not breathing again, motionless, willing his eyes to see that she had stopped too. But she had not stopped. She was fading, going. Discuss why this recognition or lack thereof is important in regards to the rest of the novel. Why does Faulkner shift the narrative perspectives in the second half of the story? What does the deputy think of Rider and the larger black community? The Old People Characters: Sam takes Isaac hunting and teaches him everything there is to know about the woods. In part two, Isaac hunts with the men of the plantation and the town and he sees another buck, but refrains from killing it.

The chapter concludes with Isaac describing the hunting experience to his cousin, Cass Edmonds. How does this story contribute to the idea that Go Down, Moses is essentially a coming-of-age novel about Isaac McCaslin? Discuss the way they are standing and why it is significant.

Go Down, Moses

What happens when they finally see the buck together? What is the buck a symbol of for Faulkner? Discuss the character of Sam Fathers. Why is he so important to him? Why is Sam different and why is this difference significant? The story is divided into five parts. Part one begins when Isaac is sixteen and he recalls an earlier time, when he was too young to join the annual hunting expeditions or had even heard of the elusive bear known as Old Ben.

When Isaac is finally old enough, Sam shows him how to track the bear. In part two, Isaac continues to learn the ways of the woods. Sam and Isaac actually come close to the bear, but the dog they have with them proves useless. Neither Isaac nor Sam shoots the bear during this encounter. In the end, the dog Lion attacks and manages to hold on to the bear while Boon stabs the animal repeatedly, finally killing him. When the bear dies, Sam collapses. The dead bear is dragged back to camp along with a gravely wounded Lion and an ill Sam.

In reading these brief entries, Ike realizes something horrible about his grandfather. He not only had a child with one of his slaves, Eunice, but he later went on to have an incestual relationship with that child, Tomasina, who had a baby. Isaac pieces the story together through a series of notes and financial details as well as the documentation of a slave drowning herself.

Isaac surmises that the slave was Eunice and that she killed herself when she learned that he fathered a child with their daughter. He also recalls an earlier time when he tried and failed to correct the wrongs done to the racially mixed side of the family by offering them financial compensation. His refusal of his inheritance leads to a philosophical discussion with his cousin Cass Edmonds, who now takes ownership of the land. Ike also marries in this section. His wife wants him to claim his inheritance, but again, he refuses. As a result, their unhappy marriage is childless.

In the final section of the story, Isaac is now eighteen. He returns for the annual hunt, but Sam, Old Ben, and Lion are gone. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Go Down, Moses , please sign up. Can't say I'm a Faulkner fan. For me, reading should be enjoyable and not painful.

There is no good reason for ideas and sentence structure to be so convoluted as to be undecipherable. Sara Lindley Because often our own thoughts are incredibly convoluted and confusing. If you're referring to the stream of conscious stuff- the sentences that take …more Because often our own thoughts are incredibly convoluted and confusing. If you're referring to the stream of conscious stuff- the sentences that take up entire pages- you have to be in the mindset that you're in the character's mind. People don't think in short clear reasoned out thoughts.

Faulkner is trying to convey the mess of the human mind through words. Anyone out there reading this novel? Donald Yes Mel, I am. First time reading this one for me. See 2 questions about Go Down, Moses…. Lists with This Book. Apr 05, Gail rated it really liked it Shelves: When I'm away from Faulkner's works, I always think of them as "hard", "confusing", "over-the-top". You know, that sort of thing that only intellectuals read and pretend to understand and enjoy.

But when I start to read them The first chapter is mysterious and deliberately obtuse. The reader is picked up in the middle of some strange goings-on and must try to decipher the characters and the allusive plotline. No matter how much you feel like you're drowning, or lost in some ma When I'm away from Faulkner's works, I always think of them as "hard", "confusing", "over-the-top". No matter how much you feel like you're drowning, or lost in some maze, or hurtling down the hill aquiring more and more mass like that mythical snowball from your youth, just keep on reading.

The prose, which seems at first glance to be so complex and without identifiable form as to be impenentrable, will soon charm you, draw you into its web, and you'll forget all about grammar constructs as you tumble over ideas, people, and events. This is a sad, sad story of men's pride, women's degradation, the corrupting abuse of power and the corrupting influence of having no power when one man can be considered to "own" another. A moving exposition of the American South. Worth reading either to better understand both black and white culture, or to simply be carried off into another world by some astounding prose.

View all 5 comments. Aug 31, Aubrey rated it liked it Recommended to Aubrey by: What went into my love for The Sound and the Fury and Light in August was a devotional and patient waiting for moments of clarity, one that relished the rolling prose and chiaroscuro enough in the meantime for a warm reception of an end. In contrast, this work largely inherited the last section of the first, a very concise and straightforward view of the previous three sections' miasma that ultimately suffered for its lending 3. In contrast, this work largely inherited the last section of the first, a very concise and straightforward view of the previous three sections' miasma that ultimately suffered for its lending well to a reader's making of meaning.

There's a moment in the middlish-end of GDM that carries on in the Faulknerian way, but by then the patience no longer waits for a message other than what was confirmed so understandably in the first pages. A disappointment, but not unforeseen. Within my class on the English periods of Neoclassicism and Romanticism there was a supreme focus on the writer as prophet. Even personal mediation succeeds in the vein of A Breath of Life , but that is much more difficult when the scope is less grand and the thematic underbelly is far more self-reflexive.

Whichever the case, both are prone to error of exotification and other symptoms of those prone to grandiose definitions of the Other, after a while rendering each and every work a balancing act of the right audience at the right time. This is of course is the usual thing with literary works, but the stakes are higher when heaven is a prophet and hell is a profiteer. An emphasis on hunting coupled with a fairy tale story of white supremacy made for an uncomfortable taste in the wake of Ferguson and government-hired guns killing a black person every 28 hours, an off the top of the head statistic that doesn't have ready recourse to the numbers of murdered brown and indigenous people but knows the less popularized are comparable.

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Take your guns and idealized female-pain and leave me the woods. I'll still be reading Absalom, Absalom! The less comprehension of bloodbreeding tropes, the better. View all 3 comments. View all 8 comments. Mar 06, Sue rated it it was amazing Shelves: This Has been a wonderful reading experience. It feels like I've been to a symphony, overwhelmed by the many component parts but the totality is just so great and, to my mind, so well done.

This novel, which is a collection of tales out of the Mississippi delta, encompasses a century of life, a war that splintered the country, the racial lines that divide then cross and mingle, the ever-changing land itself, and annual male rites of passage in the hunt. Once again I've chosen to allow Faulkner's This Has been a wonderful reading experience. Once again I've chosen to allow Faulkner's prose to wash over me. The family lineage, the complicated begats, will be truly reconciled hopefully in my second reading.

Enough comes through to allow me to have moments of "What" and "Oh! There are many exceptional sections. Of course I can't choose them all. There was the faint, cold, steady rain, the gray and constant light of the late November dawn, with the voices of the hounds converging somewhere in it and toward them. Then Sam Fathers, standing just behind the boy as he had been standing when the boy shot his first running rabbit with his first gun and almost with the first load it ever carried, touched his shoulder and he began to shake, not with any cold.

Then the buck was there. He did not come into sight, he was just there, looking not like a ghost but as if all of light were condensed in him and he were the source of it, not only moving in it but disseminating it, already running, seen first as you always see the deer, in that split second after he has already seen you, already slanting away in that first soaring bound View all 19 comments.

Aug 08, Jamie rated it really liked it Shelves: May 14, Bruce rated it really liked it.

The subplot is that the mistress of the neighboring house, Miss Sophonsiba, has her eye set on catching one of the two confirmed bachelors. The story is gentle and amusing, lacking any hint of obvious cruelty, and ending with humor. Mostly, the little story gives a glimpse into a time and culture typical of rural Mississippi, a setting that seems in a sense timeless. To what extent this picture can be generalized can be questioned, but Faulkner has set a tone for the subsequent stories in the book, be they similar or deeply contrasting.

How can tenderness have so much bite? A couple of generations have passed since the first story. Two men, Lucas Beauchamp and Roth Edmonds, one black and one white, both descendents of the same man, interact in an almost courtly minuet of custom and similar background, legal obligation, mutual respect and awkwardness in a South that has long passed the time of slavery and yet is governed by implicit rules of conduct and habit. Out of a long established routine a crisis arises, attempts at resolution occur, and a satisfactory outcome eventuates.

This simple outline fails to convey the unspoken assumptions, the issues of pride and independence, and the deeply hidden but equally deeply felt emotions and conflicted loyalties that underlie surface events. I am used to reading a Faulkner with more bitterness, with more anguish than this story contains, and the rich depth of this narrative moved me. Short and violent and tragic, a tale of loss and grief and derangement. What a stark contrast to the two previous stories.

Are black and white two different species altogether? Sometimes it seems like it, and the only possible response is sadness. There are new people, too, whom we have not met before, peopling the history and the present. Always, as in so much of Faulkner and in so much of this society and era, there is the perpetual obsession with blood — black blood, white blood, Indian blood — blood that determines status and fate, even personal character.

There is something primal about this society and its habits, its customs, something inescapable about the trajectory of lives. The story features the young boy Ike McCaslin, eager to grow up, eager to shoot his first deer, and the old Sam Fathers, mostly Chickasaw with traces of black and white, old Sam who patiently teaches Ike, shepherding him through years of learning and waiting, finally guiding him through his initiation into manhood. Faulkner powerfully evokes not only woods and wilderness but psychological yearnings and growing realizations in this haunting tale of growing up.

It is really a novella, and it is a continuation of the previous story. The Bear is ancient, mammoth in size and almost immortal, terrorizing a large area of wilderness and its few inhabitants for many years. A hound has been bred for this very purpose, a hound called Lion.

All of this forms the context in which Ike becomes the man he does become, forms the foundation for the crucial decisions he makes years later. The final portion of this novella explores, through the thoughts of primary characters, the whole anguished history of the culture and racial dynamics of the South from pre-Civil Wars times through Reconstruction and the early 20th century, the travail caused by a society and culture both romantic and elemental attempting to deal with whites, blacks, and Indians and every combination of the three.

And as time passes, the old South, the wilderness and old ways gradually and inexorably disappear, old heritages and histories and psychological genealogies never entirely vanishing but persisting almost completely hidden, like subterranean rivers that are ever present. Each character attempts to deal with these dislocations in his own way, each sacrificing aspects of himself to preserve other parts, the past never able to be entirely preserved and never entirely overcome. The wilderness is much diminished in extent, much more barren of game, but for Ike it is the place where he is most truly at home.

His is the voice of wisdom and experience, a voice often not easily heard by those who are younger. And, along with the increasing limitations of age, he also experiences a peace that compensates. Yet all is not as peaceful as it seems. The ravishment of the land is paralleled by ravishment of people, too, and racial rigidities are in tension with efforts to love, leading to irresolvable dilemmas that leave Ike shaken and anguished.

This narrative, perhaps the briefest in the book, highlights an instance of inter-racial sensitivity and caring that is poignant and uplifting, suggesting a future of understanding and harmony that seemed often lacking in the frequently fraught stories earlier in the book.

Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner - Teacher's Guide - www.newyorkethnicfood.com: Books

While never sugarcoating the history and culture of the region, never minimizing the difficult racial heritage and continuing agony, the book ends on a note of hope that is particularized in a simple action. His prose is deep and rich, never simple to read, always haunting in its insights.

Ma Dio non si cura dei singoli individui. View all 7 comments. Faulkner dedica il libro alla sua mammy nera: Sette racconti interconnessi e pieni di rimandi e di personaggi ricorrenti o romanzo vero e proprio? Ma se la domanda fosse: Ma non un qualsiasi film in bianco e nero; no, un film ammericano , di quelli che solo loro sanno fare. This is one of the most moving scenes I have seen in a moving picture for a long time. But I am particularly grateful to you, as are a number of my friends, both white and colored, for the dignified and decent treatment of Negroes in this scene.

I was in Hollywood recently and am to return there soon for conferences with production heads, writers, directors, and actors and actresses in an effort to induce broader and more decent picturization of the Negro instead of limiting him to menial or comic roles. Jun 23, Morgan rated it really liked it Shelves: For the most part, I liked this book. This is a collection of seven interrelated "short" stories. All the stories have themes about race and wilderness. They are all set in his fictitious Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. My favorite story was called "The Bear" and it probably the most famous one in this book.

My only complaint about this collection is some of the stories seemed more like novella than short stories. However, I liked the wilderness aspect of the book that makes it a great summer For the most part, I liked this book. May 29, Richard rated it it was amazing. Among the most beautiful of Faulkner is the Faulkner that studies the relationships that mankind forges amongst itself and with the outside world.

The relationships of race, of animal, of culture. In this book, Faulkner shows such a profound level of insight into how we cope with what we must and create what we need. The mosts famous section of this book, "The Bear," is just a wonder for how well it does what Faulkner messes up in works like Intruder in the Dust. Coming of age, the politics betw Among the most beautiful of Faulkner is the Faulkner that studies the relationships that mankind forges amongst itself and with the outside world.

Coming of age, the politics between races, the inevitability of time--this one section alone smacks out your teeth with the aging of a boy into manhood and all the pains therein in his quest to fell a mythically sized bear. But how the South can maintain its flat stereotype with Faulkner's work in print is beyond me. But then a giant buck comes down the slope toward them and looks at them with gravity and dignity. Sam calls it "grandfather. In bed, Isaac tells McCaslin about the buck, and McCaslin speculates that it represented some form of indomitable, primal energy that grows up out of the earth from all the blood that seeps into it and all the lives it absorbs.

Isaac thinks that McCaslin does not believe him, that he is accusing him of claiming to have seen a ghost; but McCaslin tells him solemnly that he, too, has seen the buck: Sam took him into that same clearing the day he killed his first deer. As Isaac grows older, he becomes an expert hunter and woodsman, and continues going with the hunting parties every year. The group becomes increasingly preoccupied with hunting Old Ben , a monstrous, almost immortal bear that wreaks havoc throughout the forest. Old Ben's foot was maimed in a trap, and he seems impervious to bullets.

Isaac learns to track Old Ben, but hunting him is futile, because all the hounds fear him. Isaac sees Old Ben several times. Once, they send a tiny fyce-dog with no sense of danger after him, and Isaac has a shot at the huge bear. But instead of taking the shot, Isaac runs after the fyce and dives to save him from the bear. Isaac looks up at Old Ben looming over him and remembers the image from his dreams about the bear.

At last they find a dog capable of bringing Old Ben to bay: Lion, a huge, wild Airedale Terrier mix with extraordinary courage and savagery. Sam makes Lion semi-tame by starving him until he will allow himself to be touched; soon, Boon Hogganbeck has devoted himself to Lion and even shares a bed with him.

Using Lion, they nearly catch Old Ben, but Boon misses five point-blank shots. General Compson hits the bear and draws blood, but Old Ben escapes into the forest. Isaac and Boon go into Memphis to buy whisky for the men, and the next day, they go after the bear again. General Compson declares that he wants Isaac to ride Kate, the only mule who is not afraid of wild animals and, therefore, the best chance any of the men have to get close enough to the bear to kill him. In the deep woods, near the river, Lion leaps at Old Ben and takes hold of his throat.

Old Ben seizes Lion and begins shredding his stomach with its claws. Boon draws his knife and throws himself on top of the bear, stabbing it in its back. Old Ben dies, and a few days later, Lion dies as well. Sam Fathers collapses after the fight and dies not long after Lion.

TEACHING GUIDE

Lion and Sam are buried in the same clearing. Isaac returns to the farm near Jefferson, to the old McCaslin plantation. Time passes; eventually he is 21 time for him to assume control of the plantation, which is his by inheritance. But he renounces it in favor of his cousin once-removed McCaslin Edmonds, who is practically his father. Isaac has a long argument with McCaslin in which Isaac declares his belief that the land cannot be owned, that the curse of God's Earth is man's attempt to own the land, and that that curse has led to slavery and the destruction of the South.

McCaslin tries to argue with him, but Isaac remembers looking through the old ledger books of Uncle Buck and Uncle Buddy and piecing together the story of the plantation's slaves, and he refuses the inheritance. One of Isaac's inferences is particularly appalling: Eunice committed suicide shortly before Turl's birth, and from this and other factors, Isaac deduces that she must also have been Carothers McCaslin's lover.

After refusing the inheritance, Isaac moves into town and becomes a carpenter, eschewing material possessions. He marries a woman who urges him to take back the plantation, and he still does not give in when she tries to convince him sexually. He tries to administer the money left to the children of Tomey's Turl and Tennie, even traveling to Arkansas to give a thousand dollars to Fonsiba, Lucas' sister, who moved there with a scholarly negro farmer who never seems to farm, but she refuses his offering. Isaac continues to hunt and to spend all the time he can in the woods.

Once, he goes back to the hunting camp where they had stalked Old Ben for so many years. Major de Spain has sold it to a logging company, and the trains come closer and louder than before. Soon, it will be whittled away by the loggers. Boon is in a clearing full of squirrels, trying to fix his gun.

As Isaac enters, Boon shouts at him not to touch any of the squirrels: A third version was published in Faulkner's collection of hunting stories, Big Woods 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. It carries a dark-eyed young woman with a baby wrapped in a blanket.

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.