Frenchman's Bend in The Town (Location)

Frenchman's Bend is a very rural community about twenty miles southeast of Jefferson. Its population is almost entirely white. The local landowner is Will Varner who "just about owned the whole settlement and district" (5). It has a specific significance to the Snopes saga: the Bend is where Ab and Flem Snopes first appear in Yoknapatawpha, when they rent a worn-out farm from Varner, and it is from the Bend that Flem and the various other Snopes launch their migration to Jefferson. We also use it to represent the places where Gavin Stevens campaigns for County Attorney, where he talks to the country people who "lean on fences or squat against the walls of country stores" (176).