Isaac Snopes

Character Key Number: 
189
Display Name: 
Isaac Snopes
Sort Name: 
Snopes, Isaac
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
Yes
Biography: 

Appearing only in The Hamlet, Isaac "Ike" Snopes is the cognitively limited cousin of Flem and Mink. At 14, he is a "hulking figure" in "bursting overalls" (94) who works around Mrs. Littlejohn's hotel as a kind of janitor. Ike is referred to as an "idiot" and "creature" with a "mowing and bobbing head" and a "Gorgon-face" that "had been blasted empty and clean forever of any thought, the slobbering mouth in its mist of soft gold hair" (95). Officially, Flem is Ike's guardian, but he does nothing to protect Ike from being exploited by Lump Snopes. Faulkner's account of Ike's romantic and sexual relationship with Jack Houston’s cow is both grotesque and affecting; his vision of her beauty parodies sentimental literature and yet possesses mythic proportions and genuine human poignancy.

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