Submitted by jjoiner@keuka.edu on Fri, 2017-06-23 11:15
The "tank" at the top of the water tower can be seen "standing against the sky above the Jefferson roof-line" (30). The water it holds begins to taste "brassy" after the metal that Flem Snopes tried to steal ends up at its bottom (30). But although the tower was originally thought of as "Flem Snopes's monument" (3), Chick Mallison says it is actually a "footprint" marking a step in Flem's rise in society (4).
Submitted by jjoiner@keuka.edu on Fri, 2017-06-23 11:07
Appropriately, among Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha fictions The Town contains the most locations inside the town limits; all 57 of these are displayed in the "Jefferson" inset map above right. The purpose of this entry is to locate the town inside the contexts of Yoknapatawpha and Digital Yoknapatawpha.
Submitted by jjoiner@keuka.edu on Fri, 2017-06-23 10:44
Cousin Gowan leaves with the Mallisons for several years because his father, who works for the State Department, has been sent "to China or India or some far place" (4).
Submitted by jjoiner@keuka.edu on Fri, 2017-06-23 10:32
Gowan Stevens lived here before the novel starts because "his father worked for the State Department" (3); he was planning "to enter the prep school in Washington" (47), before spending several years in Jefferson when his father is sent abroad.
Submitted by jjoiner@keuka.edu on Fri, 2017-06-23 10:19
Cotton gins play a crucial role in the economy of Yoknapatawpha. A 'gin' is machine that separates the valuable fibers of the cotton plant from its seeds; a cotton gin also usually includes a 'cotton compress' which presses the cleaned cotton fibers into bales for shipment. Since a gin is only used once each year, when the cotton is picked, it is typically housed in a simple structure. Though Faulkner never describes the operation of one in any detail, his fictions mention several different gins around the county.
Submitted by jjoiner@keuka.edu on Fri, 2017-06-23 10:16
The "Blue Goose" is one of the rare black-owned businesses in Yoknapatawpha: "a Negro cafe below the cotton gin" (167). Since it stays open "every night" until the town night marshal "runs all" the patrons out "and closes it up" (168), it may be more like a juke joint - that is, an African American night spot featuring music, dancing and gambling as well as drinking - than a restaurant. It is referred to in The Town, but not described in any detail.
Submitted by jjoiner@keuka.edu on Fri, 2017-06-23 10:15
Near to the tent where Snopeses live when they first reach Jefferson is the store that serves as the launch point for Wallstreet Panic Snopes' success story - a story that provides an edifying counterpoint to Flem's rise to power and that also reveals the way 20th-century progress comes to Yoknapatawpha. When Wall begins working at this store as a janitor and "afterschool-and-Saturday clerk and errand boy," it is a "grocery store about the same class as the Snopes cafe" (135) - which is to say, a low class.
Submitted by jjoiner@keuka.edu on Fri, 2017-06-23 10:14
Ratliff mentions "Ohio" in The Hamlet when he's talking with people in Frenchman's Bend about "the Northerner" who wants to create a goat farm in Yoknapatawpha - he includes "Ohio" and, for example, "Boston, Maine" as a way to represent 'the North' as a different kind of place than "this country" - i.e. Yoknapatawpha, or the South (87, 89). In The Town, Ohio is where Matt Levitt is from, where he won the Golden Gloves and where he attended the "new Ford mechanic's school" (192). The novel doesn't say where in Ohio, however.
Submitted by jjoiner@keuka.edu on Fri, 2017-06-23 10:11
Opened by Montgomery Ward Snopes after he returns from the First World War in The Town, the Atelier Monty transforms a corner store "with a side door on an alley" (127) into what Gavin Stevens calls "a pay-as-you-enter peep show with a set of imported pornographic photographs" (282). The photographs - like Snopes' pretentious name for the establishment - were brought to Yoknapatawpha from France. The building is owned by Mrs. Compson, though the text never says if Jason or his mother know what the Atelier sells.
