The "south Mississippi convict camp" (244) where Mink Snopes met the woman who became his wife is "a tract of wildcatted virgin timber" being logged (262). The convict labor system was widespread in the South, and in some ways perpetuated the system of slavery. As the novel's narrator puts it, the white man who runs the camp "through political influence or bribery or whatever got his convict labor from the State for the price of their board and keep" (262); the prisoners themselves were not compensated for their work.
The "south Mississippi convict camp" (244) where in The Hamlet Mink Snopes meets the woman who becomes his wife is in "a tract of wildcatted virgin timber" (262). The convict labor system was widespread in the South, and in some ways perpetuated the system of slavery. As the novel's narrator puts it, the white man who runs the camp "through political influence or bribery or whatever got his convict labor from the State for the price of their board and keep" (262); the prisoners themselves are not compensated for the work they do cutting down the trees.
Book Two of The Hamlet ends with an italicized scene in hell, where "the Prince" of Darkness dwells in a "magnificent kingly hall hung about with the proud battle-torn smokes of the old martyrs" and where one can hear the "constant screams of authentic Christians" (168). Faulkner is obviously being whimsical, but we needed somehow to put the location into our system of maps. Our choice should be seen as another piece of whimsy.
Book Two of The Hamlet ends with an italicized scene in hell, where "the Prince" of Darkness dwells in a "magnificent kingly hall hung about with the proud battle-torn smokes of the old martyrs" and where one can hear the "constant screams of authentic Christians" (168). The event that takes place in Hell can be read as a fantasy of V.K. Suratt's, and Faulkner is obviously being whimsical.
Like the rest of Yoknapatawpha, the county jail to which Mink Snopes is taken is arranged by the rule of Jim Crow. He occupies its one cell, which is separated from "the common room where the negro victims of a thousand petty white man's misdemeanors" - including "the chain gang" made up of blacks who are "in jail for vagrancy or razor fights or shooting dice" - eat and sleep together (285).
During his twelve years living and working outside Yoknapatawpha in The Hamlet, Jack Houston spends time "with a construction gang in Arizona and west Texas" (234). This would have been about three decades before Arizona became a U.S. state.
Among the places Jack Houston lives in during the twelve years he travels outside Yoknapatawpha is Kansas, where he works as a "wheat-hand" for a while (234).
Among the places Jack Houston lives in during the twelve years he travels outside Yoknapatawpha is New Mexico, where he "herds sheep" for a time (234).
