In Flags in the Dust, Dr. Peabody's household of black servants includes, to quote his dehumanizing description, "six or seven registered ones" as well as "a new yearlin' every day or so" (303). Like Abe, the only servant who is named, their main task seems to be assisting the gentlemen and ladies who come to fish at the doctor's pond.
Submitted by jjoiner@keuka.edu on Wed, 2013-12-18 14:28
Like all the towns on Ringo's map of the campaign he and Granny conduct against the Union Army's livestock in The Unvanquished, "Caledonia" is a real town in Mississippi (126). It's in Lowndes County, north of Columbus and near the Alabama border. There is also a section of Yoknatawpha called Caledonia mentioned in The Town, and a Caledonia Chapel in Intruder in the Dust. "Caledonia" is the Latin name that the Romans gave northern Britain, and it became a synonym for Scotland.
Submitted by jjoiner@keuka.edu on Wed, 2013-12-18 14:17
Madison - one of the places on Ringo's map of the Sartoris campaign against the Union Army's mules in The Unvanquished (126) - is a real town in Mississippi: the seat of Madison County, Mississippi. It was named for President James Madison. Located on a railroad line and only ten miles from the state capital of Jackson, Madison was heavily damaged in during the Civil War.
The woods in which Young Bayard, Johnny and Caspey hunted small game as children, and in which Bayard and Caspey can still hunt, is at the back of the Sartoris plantation, "behind" Uncle Henry's cabin and past at least one crop field. There are vines on many of the saplings and trees, and a creek runs through them. It seems likely that the spring "flowing from the roots of a beech" where Old Bayard sought refuge when he was a child was also in these woods (90).
Submitted by jjoiner@keuka.edu on Wed, 2013-12-18 13:58
Mentioned in this story as one of the locations where Granny and Ringo stole mules, Oxford is also a real location in north-central Mississippi, about 75 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. Oxford is the county seat of Lafayette County and the location of the University of Mississippi. This is where Faulkner lived for much of his life and is the basis for his fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi. Oxford itself appears under its real name in the vicinity of Jefferson in texts like Sanctuary, and Absalom, Absalom!
