Unnamed New Englanders

This "New Englander" is different from the 'Yankees' and 'Northerners' that Gavin Stevens often disparages in the novel. During his lengthy monologue about race in Chapter 7, Gavin mentions "the New Englander" after telling his nephew that the white South, "alone in the United States," is "a homogeneous people"; he adds that this "New Englander" who lives "back inland" from the cities on the coast is also homogeneous, "but there are no longer enough of him" to preserve what, in Gavin's mind, the white South must defend (150).