Evolutionary Theory in Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy

Abstract

Since their first appearance in his fiction, the Snopeses have troubled Faulkner's readers. These comic, perverse figures who come to dominate Jefferson, Mississippi, in the Snopes trilogy stand out among Faulkner's more familiar characters, the introspective intellectuals or brooding misfits and the good-natured, naive country people whom we are used to finding in his stories. We usually see them, moreover, through the distinct narrative distance of Gavin Stevens' or V. K. Ratliff's interpreting consciousness, and as a consequence, even the more fully depicted Snopeses remain alien and somehow one-dimensional. Both the narrative modes through which we encounter them and the bizarre circumstances characterizing so many of the episodes in which Snopeses appear have led to critical confusion and to a paucity of commentary that successfully ties the Snopeses to Faulkner's larger fictional concerns.