Courthouse and Square in As I Lay Dying (Location)

Courthouse Square in Jefferson, as the center of both the town and the county, appears in many of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha fictions. In As I Lay Dying we see it first through Darl's eyes, entering town in the middle of the day: "We approach the crest, where the street runs, where cars go back and forth . . . The street runs on ahead, where the square opens and the monument stands before the courthouse" (231). Later we see it through Vardaman's eyes, as he walks through it that night with his sister: "the stores are dark because they have all gone home. The stores are dark, but the lights pass on the windows when we pass. The lights are in the trees around the courthouse. They roost in the trees, but the courthouse is dark. The clock on it looks four ways, because it is not dark" (249).