Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Sun, 2015-01-11 00:43
The store in "Retreat" where Bayard and Ringo stop to buy a bag of salt is on the Square in Jefferson, since Buck McCaslin comes "hobbling across the square" to address the boys (20, 46). It's fun to speculate whether Faulkner imagined that this is the store in town that belongs to Goodhue Coldfield in Absalom! - the story and the novel were written at the same point in Faulkner's career; Coldfield opened his store in 1828, so it would have been 'there' in 1863 when the story takes place.
Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Sun, 2015-01-11 00:41
Although richly detailed in The Sound and the Fury, there is no description of the Compson Place in "Retreat" other than the fact that Granny is dropped off and picked up here.
Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Sun, 2015-01-11 00:24
There are two Yoknapatawpha roads that Granny could have taken from Jefferson to Memphis. Given the fact that Ringo says "Good-by" to the Sartoris plantation as they take the road into town (20), it seems most likely that Faulkner imagined that Granny's party took the other road from Jefferson northwest to Memphis. Much of the action of "Retreat" takes place along this road, outside Yoknapatawpha, so we imagine it continues in a generally northwesterly direction beyond the county line.
Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Sat, 2015-01-10 23:10
The orchard at the Sartoris plantation serves both practical and aesthetic purposes. As a practical matter, the orchard provides food as well as a place to bury the family silver to hide it from Union soldiers. The orchard also provides a natural aesthetic enhancement to the plantation; like a formal garden, the orchard helps to elevate the cultural status of the plantation’s owners. Judging from the movements of Bayard and Ringo in this story, the Sartoris plantation orchard appears to be between the main house and the driveway gate on the “big road” that passes the place.
Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Sat, 2015-01-10 23:06
As with the story where it first appears, "Ambuscade," there is little description given in "Retreat" of the Sartoris plantation main house. At the end of "Retreat" the main house is burned by Union soldiers, so the house in this story is not the same one that appears in Flags in the Dust. Other parts of the plantation mentioned in the text include Loosh's cabin as part of the slave quarters, the orchard, the barn, the swimming hole, the pasture, and a smoke house.
Kristi Rowan Humphreys is Lecturer of English at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where she teaches American literature, British Literature, and writing courses. Her publications include chapters on William Faulkner in anthologies with the University Press of Mississippi and Southeast Missouri State University Press. Research interests primarily focus on Faulkner's fiction in men's magazines.
