Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Tue, 2013-10-15 17:20
"Samson's" appears in As I Lay Dying and again in Light in August, both times in the Frenchman's Bend section of Yoknapatawpha, but in two different places. In the first novel Samson lives next to the river, in what seems to be both a store and a farm. The porch of the store is where Samson, MacCallum and Quick watch the Bundrens pass by in their wagon before they realize the bridge there is out - probably the same bridge as the 'Samson's Bridge' that is a Location in Flags in the Dust.
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Tue, 2013-10-15 17:12
A sawmill turns trees into boards. The planing mill where Byron Bunch, Joe Christmas, and Lucas Burch all work shapes boards into more finished pieces of wood, though it is an industrial rather than an artisanal process. This mill contains several distinct places mentioned in the text, including the planer shed (31), the sawdust pile (33), the pumphouse (34), and a post (34).
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Tue, 2013-10-15 17:06
There are quite a few sawmills scattered around the Yoknapatawpha landscape, but the mill where several of the major characters in Light in August work is the only planing mill in the fictions. Sawmills turn trees into boards, and are usually set up near the forests that are being cut down for lumber. A planing mill shapes the rough boards into more finished pieces of wood, though it is an industrial rather than an artisanal process. This one is on the edge of Jefferson.
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Tue, 2013-10-15 16:49
Lena Grove, nine months pregnant, is walking very slowly when Armstid overtakes her on this road and gives her a ride. The context of the novel suggests that Lena is walking south and slightly west; Armstid wouldn't have picked her up had she not been on his way home, and Faulkner's map puts his farm as one of the two northernmost in the area near Frenchman's Bend.
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Tue, 2013-10-15 16:42
Lena enters Yoknapatawpha walking on this road at the beginning of Light in August. Three Frenchman's Bend farmers live along it - at least in some of the texts: Tull, Winterbottom and Armstid. All three of these farms, however, move to other places around the Bend at least once.
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Tue, 2013-10-15 16:40
At the novel's beginning Lena Grove has just passed the farm owned by Winterbottom on her quest to find Lucas Burch. As she walks by, Winterbottom is dickering with his neighbor Armstid, who has come by to make an offer on a cultivator he has for sale.
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Tue, 2013-10-15 16:34
The Frenchman's Bend farmer named Winterbottom appears in 3 texts. His farm is a location in 2 of these, though it is an example of how willing Faulkner is to move his un-real estate around. The first time the farm appears, in Light in August, it is on the road by which Lena Grove enters Yoknapatawpha after her four weeks' journey from Alabama. In that text the farm is still a good distance from Frenchman's Bend.
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Tue, 2013-10-15 16:25
The Courthouse icon represents both an actual and a symbolic Location. The courthouse building at the physical center of Jefferson is where the case of Joe Christmas is heard at the end of the novel; during that Grand Jury proceeding Byron Bunch stands "beneath the portico which faced the south side of the square," and notes how "the stone columns rose, arching, weathered, stained with generations of casual tobacco" (415; interestingly, he does not note the statue of the Confederate soldier that in other Faulkner texts stands outside the courthouse's south side).
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Tue, 2013-10-15 16:07
Varner's Store is where Lena Grove catches her last ride into Jefferson. Other Faulkner texts locate it in the heart of the Frenchman's Bend area, the "hamlet" of The Hamlet, but this novel does not mention the name of the area.
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Tue, 2013-10-15 16:01
Lena Grove gets a ride with Armstid to move her along in her search for Lucas Burch; she spends one night at Armstid's farm near Varner's store. Faulkner's map locates the farm north and slightly east of Frenchman's Bend.
