While various Asian locations appear in the canon as early as Flags in the Dust, V.K. Ratliff's reference to "Asia" in this novel is the only time the continent itself is named. The reference occurs in a description of how the world is growing darker during the late 1930s, as events carry it toward a second World War - or as Ratliff puts it, "we watched the lights go out in Spain and Ethiopia, the darkness that was going to creep eastward across all Europe and Asia too" (198).
While various Asian locations appear in the canon as early as Flags in the Dust, the continent itself is only mentioned once, when The Mansion, Faulkner's penultimate novel, describes how the world grew darker during the late 1930s, as events carried it toward a second World War - or as V.K. Ratliff puts it, "we watched the lights go out in Spain and Ethiopia, the darkness that was going to creep eastward across all Europe and Asia too" (198).
During his lengthy monologue about race in Chapter 7, Gavin Stevens refers with clear contempt to what he calls "the coastal spew of Europe" that lives in the urban, industrial North, an undefined group that he juxtaposes to "the New Englander" who lives "back inland" away from the cities on the coast (150). The distinction is a hierarchical and even moral one: the traditional (i.e.
During his lengthy monologue about race in Chapter 7 of Intruder in the Dust, Gavin Stevens refers with clear contempt to what he calls "the coastal spew of Europe" that lives in the urban, industrial North, an undefined group that he juxtaposes to "the New Englander" who lives "back inland" away from the cities on the coast (150). The distinction is a hierarchical and even moral one: the traditional (i.e.
This "New Englander" is different from the 'Yankees' and 'Northerners' that Gavin Stevens often disparages in the novel. During his lengthy monologue about race in Chapter 7, Gavin mentions "the New Englander" after telling his nephew that the white South, "alone in the United States," is "a homogeneous people"; he adds that this "New Englander" who lives "back inland" from the cities on the coast is also homogeneous, "but there are no longer enough of him" to preserve what, in Gavin's mind, the white South must defend (150).
This "New Englander" is different from the 'Yankees' and 'Northerners' that Gavin Stevens often disparages in Intruder in the Dust. During his lengthy monologue about race in Chapter 7, Gavin mentions "the New Englander" after telling his nephew that the white South, "alone in the United States," is "a homogeneous people"; he adds that this "New Englander" who lives "back inland" from the cities on the coast is also homogeneous, "but there are no longer enough of him" to preserve what, in Gavin's mind, the white South must defend (150).
Gavin Stevens mentions "the Swiss" in passing during his lengthy monologue about race in Chapter 7: after telling his nephew that the white South, "alone in the United States," is "a homogeneous people," he compares them to the "the Swiss" - they too are homogeneous, but there are not "enough" of them to matter, adding that they "are not a people so much as a neat clean quite solvent business" (150).
Gavin Stevens mentions "the Swiss" in passing during his lengthy monologue about race in Chapter 7 of Intruder in the Dust: after telling his nephew that the white South, "alone in the United States," is "a homogeneous people," he compares them to the "the Swiss" - they too are homogeneous, but there are not "enough" of them to matter, adding that they "are not a people so much as a neat clean quite solvent business" (150).
"Europe" plays different roles in the novel's three references to it. When Gavin Stevens talks "for three hours" with the unnamed out-of-town architect about "Europe and Paris and Vienna," the continent is clearly a way for Americans of education and cultural sophistication to recognize each other (54). Later, when Gavin is talking to his nephew about race relations, the way he locates the U.S.
