Unnamed Modern Aryans

In a confused passage that evokes a number of stereotypes, mostly involving national types (like "German," 146), Gavin Stevens asserts the idea of "the modern virile northern Aryan" to explain why he decided to participate in the First World War by serving on the allied side (146). According to Gavin's idea, it was "the old Aryan stock" as embodied in the English that "established America" (146). Exactly how he - or Faulkner - would define "Aryan" is not clear, but given the use of the term by Nazi Germany to exclude Jews from the idea of a 'master race,' it's an odd concept for Faulkner to introduce into the novel. The concept of the "Anglo-Saxon," which the narrator of the earlier Requiem for a Nun uses to describe the race of the pioneers, while still deployed in an exclusionary way, is not nearly as loaded a term.