The Curse on the Land -- Faulkner's Fallen South

"I think a man ought to do more than just repudiate.  He should have been more affirmative instead of shunning people."
-- Faulkner on Ike McCaslin to Cynthis Grenier

Faulkner's Three Ages for Yoknapatawpha County

Ancient Time -- Chickasaw Time -- a period of ancient and mystic dignity

The Anglo-Saxon Disruption -- Feudal slavery, late 17th century through Civil War

The Reconstruction to Modernity -- Poor White despoilers and the break-up of slavery

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Several Assertions

  • The land owns the people more than the people own the land.
  • Land ownership is a kind of stewardship.  It should not be passed from generation to generation.
  • The curse on the land begins with Ikkemotubbe's selling of it to white settlers.
  • The order of the Old South was unjust and therefore accursed.   It contained its own nascent fall.  It fell more from within than from without.
  • Nonetheless, it did have some apprehension of the possibility of a true truth.
  • Faulkner mourns the tragic, unjust nature of the Deep South.
  • Yet he also rejects modernity and its destruction of community and tradition.
  • Miscegenation is both an aspect of the South's injustice and a symbol of Faulkner's hope for racial reconciliation.
  • "Blood" cannot be entirely avoided.  It carries with it a heritage of wisdom and of sin.
  • The curse cannot be easily removed.  To repudiate it is not enough.  One must counter it with love.