Clarence Eggleston Snopes

Clarence ("pronounced 'Cla'nce,'" 325) Snopes is the son of I.O. Snopes and the half-brother of Montgomery Ward Snopes. Additionally, Mink Snopes identifies him as "my own oldest brother's grandson" (113), but it seems unlikely that Mink had any siblings. After being both a gang leader and a constable as a youth, through the influence of Will Varner "Cla'nce" becomes Senator C. Egglestone Snopes, an extremely corrupt and manipulative politician whom the voters of Frenchman's Bend re-elect to the state legislature for twenty-five years. He is both a Baptist "Sunday School" teacher in Jackson (334) and a habitue of the brothels in Memphis. We calculate his date of birth from the narrator saying "he was a little past forty" during the 1946 election campaign (342). That unsuccessful campaign turns out to be his political swan song.