Courthouse and Square in Absalom, Absalom! (Location)

Display Label: 
Courthouse and Square
Map Icon: 
Public building
Authority : 
Faulkner map
X: 
1290
Y: 
819
Description: 

The courthouse in Jefferson sits at the center of Courthouse Square, which sits at the center of the town of Jefferson and the county of Yoknapatawpha. As a location it appears in most of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha fictions. Absalom, Absalom! describes the Square at several different periods. In 1833, when Sutpen appears there - or as Rosa imagines it, "abrupts" onto a "scene peaceful and decorous as a school-prize watercolor" (4) while church bells ring and "ladies" in hoop skirts "did not walk but floated" to services under parasols carried by "house negroes" (23) - the village in and around the Square consists of the courthouse, six stores, a blacksmith/livery stable, a saloon, three churches, the Holston House hotel, and "perhaps thirty residences" (24). By the late 1850s, the town has grown to "twenty stores" - many of which were arrayed around the Square (54). Chapter 6 includes a scene inside the courthouse (163).

Role: 
Site of Event
Status: 
Continuous
Types: 
Courthouse and Square; Courthouse|Trial

digyok:node/location/15199