Yoknapatawpha Town

As Faulkner like the Compsons finds meaning in the past, he is not concerned with the Snopeses who find a very limited type of truth in the future. The Snopeses may succeed in their own terms, but in Faulkner's frame of reference they have no future, no "truth."

Faulkner just could not be content with narrating facts or telling a fabulous story. Yet he lacks the energy within himself and the material in the Snopeses to concern himself in this book with "truth."

But the Snopeses live in the world of Yoknapatawpha County amongst the legends and the myths of the past. They are surrounded by stories of man's need to destroy himself and the present so as to have revenge upon and gain unity with the past. They have the ruined plantations lying barren around them, they have sterility, incest, and divided houses.

These are the disconcerting themes within the Snopeses, and the author makes constant references to figures of his previous novels. It would be a disappointment to expect Faulkner to ignore his past, but the search for a tragic truth has no place amongest the grotesque and humorous Snopeses.