Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Mon, 2014-04-14 17:43
Versh Gibson is the first-born son of Roskus and Dilsey. In the earliest scenes that Benjy remembers, he works as Benjy's caretaker. Sometime before his father's death he has moved from Yoknapatawpha to Memphis; Dilsey blames her husband for his "bad luck talk" that "got them Memphis notions into Versh" (31).
Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Mon, 2014-04-14 17:36
Maury Bascomb is the brother of Caroline Bascomb Compson. For much of the Compson children's early life he lives in their home and regularly partakes of their father's whiskey; by 1928 he has moved away, but continues regularly to ask his sister for money. Benjy was originally named "Maury" in his honor, though his behavior in the novel suggests how far from honorable he is. He also has an affair with the Compsons' next door neighbor, Mrs. Patterson. When the affair is revealed, Mr. Patterson beats Uncle Maury - or as Benjy puts it, "His eye was sick, and his mouth" (43).
Submitted by jburgers@gc.cuny.edu on Mon, 2014-04-14 17:19
Caroline Compson nee Bascomb is the sister of Maury Bascomb (Uncle Maury), the wife of Jason, and the mother of Quentin, Candace, Jason and Maury|Benjamin. A bed-ridden neurotic and a hypochondriac, Caroline seems hopelessly preoccupied with herself and, despite her children's needs, with social status. She seems obsessed with the standing of the Bascomb family and largely oblivious to the misery of her own. She often speaks of how badly her children have let her down, but readers are likely to be appalled by how badly she fails them.
Submitted by dorette.sobolew... on Mon, 2014-04-14 00:23
The story does not say who or what "Spilmer's" is, but the "ravine ditch behind Spilmer's" is presumably close enough to Mrs. Hait's property (262) for her to walk there with the mule and at the same time "far enough" away to shield her from the smell of carrion after she gets back (263).
Submitted by dorette.sobolew... on Mon, 2014-04-14 00:17
Jefferson is built upon a plateau, and at some points on the edges of the town the land drops down quite steeply. Presumably the "ravine ditch behind Spilmer's" in "Mule in the Yard" and The Town is at one of those points (262, 264). The texts do not say who or what "Spilmer's" is, but the ditch is close enough to Mrs. Hait's property for her to walk there with the mule and at the same time probably far enough away to shield her from the smell of carrion after she gets back.
Submitted by dorette.sobolew... on Mon, 2014-04-14 00:12
The representation of retail business in Faulkner's Jefferson occasionally acknowledges or overtly reflects the economic and racial stratifications that are a social fact of the town. In "Uncle Willy," at least, Willy Christian's seedy drugstore explicitly serves customers whom the white narrator of that story calls "country people" and "niggers" (226) - until a new clerk cleans it up enough to attract a "new town trade" among the white middle class (233).
Submitted by dorette.sobolew... on Mon, 2014-04-14 00:00
In both "Mule in the Yard" and The Town the people in the other houses along the paved street that runs past Mannie Hait's house watch the chase for the mule "from behind adjacent window curtains and porches" (254, 246). Once the house catches fire, Mrs. Hait and Old Het become spectators too, watching the house burn down sitting from across the street, sitting in rocking chairs on a neighbor's front porch (258, 252).
Submitted by dorette.sobolew... on Sun, 2014-04-13 23:54
The economy of Jefferson - the business that is done in the banks and the stores - revolves largely around the needs and wants of the farmers and planters who live in the surrounding county. But three texts refer specifically to a "farmer's supply store" in town; when in Faulkner's last novel Lucius Priest visits it on his weekly round collecting money owed his father's livery stable, it is even named the "Farmer's Supply" ("Mule in the Yard," 257; "Appendix Compson," 333; Reivers, 43).
