Backus-Harriss Plantation in The Mansion (Location)

In the past the Backus estate, called Rose Hill (392), was one of the "biggest plantations two or three miles from town," but it falls into disrepair (217). Once Melisandre marries Harriss, the estate is extravagantly remodelled. Indeed, "what had been just a simple familiar red-ink north Mississippi cotton plantation" is "changed into a Virginia or Long Island horse farm, with miles of white panel fence" and "white stables with electric light and steam heat and running water and butlers and footmen for the horses." With Harriss' death, the estate falls again into decline. There is a discrepancy with this site's location in the larger context of Faulkner's canon. Whereas in The Town the estate is "about six miles from town" (52), in The Mansion, it is half that distance.