Anse Holland

Submitted by sfr on Wed, 2019-07-31 13:20
Character Key Number: 
315
Display Name: 
Anse Holland
Sort Name: 
Holland, Anse
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
Yes
Biography: 

In "Fool about a Horse" and again in The Hamlet "Old Man Anse Holland" (118, 33) is the landowner from whom "Pap" (in the short story) and Ab Snopes (in the novel) rent the farm they work on as a tenant farmer. In the novel, Ratliff lives on another tenant farm that Holland owns, "about a mile away" (33) - a distance that suggests that Holland is a large landowner, like the Sartorises or the McCaslins. Holland himself appears only once, vaguely, at the end of both accounts, when Pap or Ab go up to his place to try to borrow a mule; Ratliff's phrase "when he [Holland] finished cussing" (51) suggests how impatient he is with Ab's continual appropriation of his belongings, but that's all we know about him. (There are two characters named "Anselm Holland" in "Smoke," and another "Holland" in "Tomorrow," but there is no indication of a connection among these characters.)

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