Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Sat, 2016-02-27 09:06
After a disagreement with De Spain, Ab Snopes and his son Flem burn down this barn. It is unclear where De Spain's property is located, but likely it is in the fertile region to the north of Jefferson, where most of Yoknapatawpha's big estates are found; and it must be far enough away from Frenchman's Bend to have kept Jody Varner from hearing about Ab before he meets him.
Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Sat, 2016-02-27 08:59
Just as in The Sound and the Fury Caddy Compson is defined by her absence, so in "Barn Burning" neither readers nor, apparently, Ab Snopes' anguished son Sarty ever see the barn on the De Spain estate that Ab burns. It is located somewhere "across the park" - the landscaped grounds - from the big house on the De Spain plantation, on the other side of a "vine-massed fence" (23).
Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Fri, 2016-02-26 23:41
What the narrative calls "the Jefferson highroad" (390) is one of Yoknapatawpha's major arteries, though it is unpaved: the 20-mile road that connects the town of Jefferson with the hamlet of Frenchman's Bend. This icon represents the spot where Ratliff, driving his team toward the Bend at the end of Book Two, has his epiphany about the "waste" of Eula Varner's mythic beauty.
Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Fri, 2016-02-26 23:24
Located opposite Varner's store, the "hotel" run by Mrs. Littlejohn is a boarding house whose residents are mostly "drummers and livestock-traders" (31) traveling through Frenchman's Bend or staying there on business. The building is described as "a sprawling rambling edifice partly of sawn boards and partly of logs, unpainted and of two storeys" (31). Like Varner's store, it is also a hub of Frenchman's Bend social life and gossip. Throughout The Hamlet, Ratliff will get much of the information about the goings on in town through his conversations at Mrs. Littlejohn's.
Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Fri, 2016-02-26 23:10
Will Varner owns the only house in Frenchman's Bend with "more than one story"; the only other two-story building is Littlejohn's hotel (11). Because Will's daughter Eula lives there, the house is the place where "about a dozen" of the young men of Frenchman's Bend come every Sunday to tie their mules to "the Varner fence" and spend the afternoon "sitting-out" - courting - "on the veranda" of the house (145). Near the house is the "cabin" in which the Varners' cook lives (158).
Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Fri, 2016-02-26 23:07
"With the exception of" Mrs. Littlejohn's boarding house, Will Varner owns the only house in Frenchman's Bend with "more than one story" (The Hamlet, 11). It is mentioned in 5 stories. It is probably where Will conducts his veterinary practice, referred to in As I Lay Dying, though the only 'animals' we ever see him work on have two legs. Because he is the local "justice of the peace," it is where Bookwright goes to turn himself in after shooting Thorpe in "Tomorrow" (90).
Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Fri, 2016-02-26 23:04
Before coming to Frenchman's Bend by way of de Spain's and McCaslin's place, Ab Snopes "was mixed up in that burnt barn of a fellow named Harris over in Grenier County" (10).
Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Fri, 2016-02-26 22:40
As the salesman in "Gold Is Not Always" and Go Down, Moses reminds Lucas, they have left the mule in "that cotton house" (232, 86). A cotton house is a simple structure built to store the cotton as it's being picked until it's time to take it to a cotton gin. At the time this episode takes place, August, it would be empty, so it can be used instead to store a stolen mule.
Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Fri, 2016-02-26 22:35
The only store in Frenchman's Bend is one of the many properties owned by Will Varner. The store is both the place where the many tenant farmers on other Varner lands are expected to buy all their supplies, and the hub of the hamlet's social life. The gallery (or front porch) of the store appears to be constantly occupied by a number of men who never buy anything, but are simply there for conversation. The store is run by Will's son Jody in a very casual way, but when Flem Snopes gets himself hired as a clerk it becomes a tightly run enterprise.
