Ike McCaslin

Isaac McCaslin is the son of Theophilus "Uncle Buck" McCaslin and Sophonsiba Beauchamp, and the grandson and only direct white male descendant of Old Carothers McCaslin. Although Ike McCaslin is "father to no one," he is also, as the novel’s opening sentence has it, "uncle to half a county" (5). Ike is central both to the McCaslin-Beauchamp family tree and to the binding together of the stories that comprise Go Down, Moses. The novel begins with the circumstances that lead to his birth, and at the end of Go Down, Moses an elderly Ike witnesses the repetition of miscegenation and abandonment that began with his grandfather. Ike attempts to ensure that his black relatives receive their family inheritance, and he repudiates the plantation ownership that is his birthright, two of many examples of his efforts to make amends for old wounds and make an ethical stance against slavery and private property. Both of those stances have their origin in Ike's tutelage under Sam Fathers, from whom he learns to become an excellent woodsman who cares more for nature than for property.