De Spain Ancestors

Submitted by sfr on Tue, 2020-02-25 10:09
Character Key Number: 
2826
Display Name: 
De Spain Ancestors
Sort Name: 
De Spain Ancestors
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
Yes
Biography: 

In "Shall Not Perish" Major de Spain refers to his son's "forefathers [who] fought and died for [their country] then, even though what they fought and lost for was a dream" (108). "Then" is "eighty years ago," and as the word "lost" suggests, the country he is talking about was the Confederacy; these forefathers fought against the United States. (One of them would have been this Major's father, who was a Major in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.) De Spain's unreconstructed attitude explains why he covers his son's coffin with "the Confederate flag" (107).

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