StevenssInSY

The Stevenses and the Benbows (and even the Sartorises) intersect in this novel, when Gowan Stevens courts Narcissa Benbow, the widow of Bayard Sartoris. Gowan has recently graduated from the University of Virginia, where the Sartoris twins also matriculated, but his repeated claims that at college he learned to "drink like a gentleman" provide Faulkner with a way to debunk the idea of a chivalrous aristocracy - at least as represented by Gowan. Gowan's mother is mentioned, but she and her son never appear together in the narrative.