Eula Acres in The Mansion (Location)

The Compson place on the edge of Jefferson was originally one of the largest and oldest antebellum slave plantations in Yoknapatawpha, built on land "granted to Quentin Compson in 1821" by "Mahataha, the Chickasaw matriarch" (367); it is also a major site in Faulkner's imagination. The Town reminds readers of these earlier histories before going on to add a couple ironic new chapters to its story. The Compsons had to sell "a good part of it off back in 1909 for the municipal golf course in order to send the eldest son, Quentin [the great-grandson of the earlier Quentin], to Harvard" (354) - an event that constitutes a major loss for Quentin's brother Benjy in The Sound and the Fury (1929). In 1929, "the golf links" move still further out of town, and the third Compson brother, Jason, buys the property back (355). During World War II, there is speculation that the government plans to locate "an air-training field" on the land (356), and in 1943 Flem Snopes bought it from Jason. The airfield is never built, but soon after the War ends, Flem chops the Compson's "ancestral acres" (363) up "into a subdivision of standardised Veterans' Housing matchboxes" that he names "Eula Acres" (366). Within a few months the property is "dotted over with small brightly painted pristinely new hutches as identical (and about as permanent) as squares of gingerbread or teacakes" (366). This entry represents the larger property as it transforms over time. Specific locations on the larger property - the Compson's big house, Mr. Meadowfill's house, Res Snopes' house and McKinley Smith's house - all have their own entries.