Mrs. I.O. Snopes 1

Submitted by sfr on Sun, 2019-01-27 11:22
Character Key Number: 
230
Display Name: 
Mrs. I.O. Snopes 1
Sort Name: 
Snopes, Mrs. I.O. 1
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
Yes
Biography: 

In The Hamlet I.O. Snopes calls himself "a single man, unfortunately" (225), but to the surprise of Frenchman's Bend, three years after he arrived in the hamlet he turns out to have a wife, a "big gray-colored woman" (292). When she appears with "a baby six months old" in a carriage, I.O. "takes one look at that buggy" and vanishes (293). Her character is not developed further in this novel. In the next novel in the Snopes trilogy, The Town, it turns out that she is only one of I.O.'s wives - he is a twice-married man, i.e. a bigamist. In this novel her child is identified as Montgomery Ward Snopes, and as part of the migration of Snopeses into Jefferson she becomes the proprietor of the Snopes Hotel. (In the much earlier Flags in the Dust, however, the Snopes who takes over the hotel is Clarence's mother - who according to The Town would be I.O.'s second wife.)

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