McCaslin-Edmonds Place in The Hamlet (Location)

The location referred to in this novel as Ike "McCaslin's farm" (390) raises several unanswerable questions. The large McCaslin plantation in northeastern Yoknapatawpha appears in a number of the fictions, but it is never referred to as a "farm." And as readers of Go Down, Moses know, where possession of the property is a major theme, Ike never owns it; by the time of The Hamlet it belongs to Roth Edmunds. "Ike McCaslin" also appears in a number of the texts, but as a hunter, a carpenter and a hardware store owner - never as a "farmer." We have decided to locate the "farm," and the "old cottonhouse on Ike McCaslin's place" where Ab Snopes winters after leaving de Spain's (10), on the site of the McCaslin-Edmonds' plantation, but need to acknowledge the uncertainties involved.