Siam (Location Key)

Before 1949, the country now known as Thailand was called "Siam" by western nations. Siam appears in "Red Leaves" when, in his description of Three Basket and Louis Berry on the first page of the story, the narrator compares their faces to the appearance of "carved heads on a ruined wall in Siam or Sumatra, looming out of a mist" (313). It's not clear that this analogy would help many of Faulkner's readers see the two Indians more clearly, but it certainly locates them in an exotic context.