Go Down, Moses Characters

Isaac McCaslin is the main character in this book—his history runs through many of the chapters and ties the stories together. From the perspective of the people around him, Isaac is a strange, s...

Faulkner wrote about Lucas Beauchamp in an earlier version of "The Fire and the Hearth," and in this version, Lucas was more of a caricature—foolish, scheming, and laughable. In the version that...

Molly Beauchamp is the central female character in Go Down, Moses, and the most positively portrayed: she's loving, selfless, spiritual and persistent. But if we look closely at Molly, she's nevert...

Roth is the youngest member of the McCaslin/Edmonds clan and an irritable, selfish man. Faulkner paints Roth as a weak character who betrays his foster-brother as a child, treats his tenants harshl...

Buddy McCaslin is one the twin sons of Carothers McCaslin. They inherit his plantation and his slaves. In "Was," we learn that Buddy is a confirmed bachelor. He hates wearing ties, avoids women lik...

Buck McCaslin is the other twin, along with Buddy. Like Buddy, Buck also claims to be a committed bachelor, but he actually ends up marrying in his sixties and fathering a child, Isaac.When their s...

Cass Edmonds is the great-grandson of old Carothers McCaslin but down the female line of the family, a fact that keeps getting rubbed in his face. He's raised by his uncles Buck and Buddy. When Isa...

Sam Fathers might be a highly respected part-Chickasaw, part African American character, but we have to confess that Faulkner's depiction of him as semi-mute, brooding, incomprehensible and spiritu...

Old Ben is the gigantic and legendary bear in "The Bear" that roams Yoknapatawpha County. He has defied death for many years despite having been constantly hunted, and has a signature footprint tha...

Henry's the first son of Lucas and Molly Beauchamp. When Cass Edmonds's wife dies giving birth to Roth Edmonds in "The Fire and the Hearth," Molly takes baby Henry and moves into Cass' house to nur...

In "Was," Hubert Beauchamp might like to chillax, to tell his guests to have a drink, stay for dinner, stay a day or two on his plantation, but this guy's number one concern is to get his sister So...

Samuel is Molly Beauchamp's grandson from an unnamed daughter. We learn in "Go Down, Moses" that his father impregnated his mother and then deserted her. His mother died in childbirth and he was ra...

In "Was," Sophonsiba is the roan-toothed sister of Hubert Beauchamp whom he's trying desperately to marry off to Theophilus "Buck" McCaslin. She's vain and fancies herself to be British aristocracy...

Fonsiba's the daughter of Tennie and Tomey's Turl, the lovers ultimately responsible for the marriage of Sophonsiba #1 and Uncle Buck. She moved to Arkansas and married an African American "farmer"...

At the beginning of "Was," we encounter Tennie as the lover of Tomey's Turl. She lives on the Beauchamp plantation. Turl gets into trouble when he runs away from the McCaslin plantation to visit Te...

Birdsong is the corrupt white sawmill foreman in "Pantaloon in Black." He's been running a dice game for many years where he's been cheating the black sawmill workers. Rider, disconsolate over his...

Zack Edmonds is also a descendant of old Carothers McCaslin down the female line of the family. He is McCaslin "Cass" Edmonds's son and Carothers "Roth" Edmonds's father. He's less of a real man th...

Boon is a large and rough man with "the mind of a child" who runs errands for Major de Spain in his hunting camp. He's one-quarter Chickasaw, but is considered by the others to be "white." We see B...

Will Legate is one of Roth Edmonds's obnoxious friends who go hunting with him every year to the Delta. Will keeps teasing Roth about a "doe," which is to say, about a woman he is supposed to be me...

Old Carothers is the legendary paterfamilias who first moves to Yoknapatawpha County and acquires a large tract of land from the Chickasaw Indians, which he turns into a plantation. He also acquire...

Isaac's unnamed wife doesn't get much mention in the book—surprising, being that she's married to the protagonist. She married Isaac knowing he was heir to a plantation, and well, let's just say...

Rider is an African American man who lives on Roth Edmonds's land and works at the sawmill nearby. He can't remember his own parents, and has been raised by his aunt and uncle. In his previous life...

In "Go Down, Moses," the sheriff's deputy is a callous man. He only appears in the short last section of the story. He sits in his kitchen as his wife prepares dinner, and he recounts what happened...

Major de Spain is one of the men in the hunting party in "The Old People," "The Bear" and "Delta Autumn." He is an old Confederate cavalry commander who now owns a large tract of land in Yoknapataw...

Gavin Stevens is a white district attorney with a fancy education, "Phi Beta Kappa, Harvard; Ph.D. Heidelberg" (7.2.1) and has aspirations of being a Bible scholar. He's been working for twenty-two...

Turl is the son of old Carothers McCaslin by the slave girl Tomey, who's Carothers McCaslin's daughter by Eunice, making him old Carothers's son and grandson. The shocking thing about Turl's charac...

A "light skinned" African American woman, who turns out to be the granddaughter of James Beauchamp, shows up at the hunting camp to see Roth Edmonds. She's holding a mysterious bundle. Roth has tol...

In "The Fire and the Hearth," George Wilkins is an African American man who wants to marry Lucas Beauchamp's daughter Nat. Well, actually, George and Nat are secretly married, but they're looking f...

Nat is Lucas and Molly Beauchamp's youngest daughter. In "The Fire and the Hearth," she secretly marries George Wilkins. When Lucas tries to report George's whiskey-making operation to the cops, Na...

Miss Worsham is the old white woman whose grandfather was a slave owner who owned Molly and her brother Hamp's parents. Miss Worsham and Molly have grown up together, and Miss Worsham now lives in...