Submitted by johnmcorrigan@g... on Mon, 2015-03-30 12:02
"Nine hours" (289) from De Spain's camp, deep within the interior of the Big Bottom, the landmark tree and the glade are close to each other. Indeed, right before the boy sees the bear in the glade, he spies sunlight glinting off the watch that he has hung on the tree. The "landmark tree" refers, moreover, not to a specific single tree, but any tree used for navigation. In later versions of this story in Go Down, Moses and Big Woods, Faulkner pluralizes the term, calling such markers "landmark trees."
Submitted by johnmcorrigan@g... on Mon, 2015-03-30 11:50
A "landmark tree" is a tree used for navigation. This specific tree is "nine hours" on foot from De Spain's camp (196), in "a little glade" (198) deep within the interior of what Go Down, Moses calls "the markless wilderness" (197). It is here that Ike McCaslin (and in "The Bear," the unnamed boy) "relinquishes completely" to the woods, leaving his watch and compass behind in his quest to see Old Ben (197). When he realizes he is lost, the bear leads him back to the tree.
Submitted by johnmcorrigan@g... on Mon, 2015-03-30 10:50
The family plantation is situated four miles from Jefferson. In "The Old People," it is called a "farm," but in this story Faulkner explicitly calls it a "plantation," although in the earlier story we learn much more about its organization. There are cabins for black tenant farmers on the land, as well as the blacksmith shop where Sam Father works.
Submitted by johnmcorrigan@g... on Mon, 2015-03-30 07:31
This is the spot where the boy hunter sees Old Ben the bear for the second time in "The Bear" and Go Down, Moses. A dictionary defines "blowdown" as 'a tree or trees that have been blown down by the wind'; Faulkner's narrative describes the spot as a "corridor where a tornado had passed," consisting of a "tangle of trunks and branches" (291, 199).
Submitted by johnmcorrigan@g... on Mon, 2015-03-30 07:25
Some distance beyond the overturned log with the bear's "crooked print" stands a "gum tree" beside which flows a "little bayou . . . whose black still water crept without movement out of a cane-brake and crossed a small clearing and into cane again" (285). The bayou serves as a demarcation point between the Big Bottom hunting grounds and the "new and alien country" (289) of wilderness that lies beyond these grounds.
Submitted by johnmcorrigan@g... on Mon, 2015-03-30 07:16
In "The Bear" and Go Down, Moses stands a "big gum tree" beside this "little bayou whose black still water crept without motion out of a cane-brake, across a small clearing and into the cane again" (285, 191). The spot is some distance beyond the log where The Bear's footprint was first seen, and it serves as a demarcation point between two parts of the wilderness: the hunting grounds that the boy|Ike McCaslin already knows and the "new and alien country" (289, 196) that lies beyond, where he will see the bear.
