Net Snopes

Character Key Number: 
185
Display Name: 
Net Snopes
Sort Name: 
Snopes, Net
Parent Character Key: 
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
Yes
Biography: 

While Abner and Lennie Snopes' older son Flem is one of the most prominent inhabitants of Faulkner's imagination, and their younger son Sarty the central character of one of his greatest short stories, neither of their twin daughters gets much attention in the two texts in which they figure. Only one sister - Net, this one - is named. In "Barn Burning" both are described as "big, bovine, in a flutter of cheap ribbons" (9), and very lazy: they do very little to help with household chores, leaving most of the work to their mother and aunt. Not even a name enables us to tell them apart in The Hamlet, where they are simply described as “two hulking gals” who still take no part in the intensive labor their mother and aunt engage in (15). We speculate that the sisters are "the Snopes girls" referred to in The Town (383); if that's correct, as grown and married woman they each have a husband's last name. Net, we assume, is now Mrs. Binford. She lives with her husband "near Varner's store" in Frenchman's Bend (383). But it has to be emphasized that the connection between Net Snopes and Mrs. Binford is speculative.