Southern Racial Inequality in Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses

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Southern Racial Inequality in Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses

All the stories in Go Down, Moses had a common thread: the McCaslin family. One story, however, stood out from the rest for lacking a McCaslin main character. This story was, of course, “Pantaloon in Black.” At first, I thought this story of grief was almost a beautiful love story. When Rider lost his wife and first love, he was so grief-stricken he didn’t even care to live. However, the conclusion on the story took any beauty out of this tragedy. The matter-of-fact way the deputy tells his wife the story, and the even more apathetic way that she accepts/ignores it, was Faulkner’s way of reminding us of the racial inequality in the South.

Waiting until the end of the story to throw at the reader the key to the story is typical of Faulkner. We saw him waiting to shock us at the end of Sanctuary with the circumstances of Popeye’s life. He waited until near the end of Absalom, Absalom! to put together all the pieces of that puzzle. While the reader didn’t find out any shocking news at the end of “Pantaloon in Black,” we were...

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