Carothers McCaslin Edmonds

McCaslin Edmonds (also called "Cass") is the great-grandson of "Old Carothers" McCaslin, the slave-owner who built the large plantation in northeast Yoknapatawpha. Cass is descended from Old Carothers by the "distaff" (5) or female side of the family (his grandmother was Carothers McCaslin's daughter), and would not ordinarily inherit the McCaslin property. But when Ike McCaslin renounces that inheritance, his cousin Cass comes into possession of it, and in turn he bequeaths it to his son, Zachary Edmonds. He appears in Go Down, Moses as the nine-year-old narrator of "Was," the novel's first chapter, and as Ike's surrogate father in "The Bear," where during a long conversation that revolves around Ike's determination to relinquish the property, they discuss and argue about race and Southern history. As a defender of the Lost Cause, Cass is trying to talk Ike out of his idea - even at his own expense. Cass' role in the family history is mentioned briefly in The Town and muddied in Faulkner's last novel, The Reivers, when the narrative mentions a "McCaslin Edmonds" who is Zack's father (17) and another "McCaslin Edmonds" who is "Zack's uncle" (118). But it's very likely that "uncle" was just a lapse on Faulkner's part.