The Illusion of Freedom in The Hamlet and Go Down, Moses

Abstract

T HE HAMLET iS often referred to as the first volume of the Trilogy, the three novels which chronicle the rise and demise of the noxious Flem Snopes. Although it is clearly related to the other two volumes of the so-called trilogy, The Hamlet is as closely akin thematically to Go Down, Moses. Certainly the novels deal with different locales and eras in the Yoknapatawpha saga and feature protagonists as radically opposed as Flem Snopes and Ike McCaslin. Nevertheless, these two works explore contrapuntally a concern which in the late thirties and early forties was central to Faulkner's own life-the illusory nature of freedom. Although Faulkner published The Hamlet in 1940 and Go Down, Moses in 1942, he did not write first one and then the other. As numerous scholarly works indicate, he worked concurrently on the Snopes and McCaslin material as early as 1936 and continued to do so until the publication of Go Down, Moses. 1 This period from 1936 to 1942 was the darkest of his life. According to Karl Zender, Faulkner was burdened during the late thirties and early forties by a quite extraordinary level of social and material obligations which included support for numerous family members as well as expenses entailed by his enormous real estate holdings. Arguing that Faulkner's personal situation during these stressful years is reflected in such fictional themes as freedom and bondage, Zender suggests that Faulkner's most direct self-reference in Go Down, Moses occurs in the character of the similarly burdened Roth