Abraham DeFrance

Submitted by sfr on Thu, 2019-01-10 11:06
Text: 
Requiem for a Nun
Character Key: 
Abraham DeFrance
Display Name: 
Abraham DeFrance
Sort Name: 
DeFrance, Abraham
Race: 
White
Gender: 
Male
Class: 
Indeterminable
Rank: 
Peripheral
Vitality: 
Alive
Occupation: 
Administrative
Specific Job: 
Federal Superintendent of Buildings
First Mentioned: 
Jackson, Mississippi in Requiem for a Nun (Location)
Biography: 

According to the novel, Abraham DeFrance advised the men who founded Jackson on how to "lay out the city" (85). Faulkner got the name "Abraham DeFrance" (along with a lot of the other names and historical details in "The Golden Dome" introduction to Act II of Requiem) from Mississippi: A Guide to the Magnolia State, a product of the Depression era's Federal Writers' Project (New York: Hastings House, 1938). In the guide's section on Jackson, DeFrance is referred to as "superintendent of public buildings at Washington, D.C."; the novel uses the same phrase, minus the "D.C." (According to history, the man most responsible for the design of Jackson was Peter Van Dorn; he was one of the commissioners who decided on the location of the new capital, but the novel doesn't mention him.)

Individual or Group: 
Individual
Character changes class in this text: 

digyok:node/character/18810