Hoke Christian

Hoke Christian, Uncle Willy's father, opened the drugstore that Willy still owns before the Civil War. He seems to have been a much more exemplary member of the community than Willy, but it's hard to determine his class. Faulkner may intend Hoke to represent an example of the old southern aristocracy that has degenerated since that war was lost. In addition to his business, he owned at least one slave, Job, and slave-owning is a characteristic of Yoknapatawpha's upper class families. Talking about Hoke's son Willy, Mrs. Merridew refers to "that position in the world which his family's name entitled him to" (232). But Mrs. Merridew herself is by no means a member of Jefferson's elite, and the story regularly subverts her judgments. In several other texts Faulkner calls the roll of Yoknapatawpha's leading citizens, the Sartorises and Compsons and McCaslins and so on; he never includes the name "Christian" among them. Nor are any of these families identified with store-keeping. We think the "position" he occupies in the world Faulkner created is a middle class one.