Character Analysis
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 harshly and doesn't have the decency to face his son's mother to tell her he won't marry her. Roth becomes the plantation's owner only because Isaac relinquished his claim and gave the plantation to Roth's grandfather McCaslin Edmonds. He didn't do anything to deserve it.
Isaac believes that each successive generation of Edmondses were less honorable than the one before, maybe because of the corrupting influence of the inheritance. Anyway, by the time it's trickled down to Roth, there's not much honor left. Honestly, even Roth doesn't like Roth much.
No.
When Roth is seven years old, he "entered his heritage. He ate its bitter fruit" (2.3.1.62). How exactly? Well, thus far, he's grown up with Molly and Lucas's firstborn, Henry. They eat together, they sleep on the same bed, sometimes in the Edmonds house, sometimes in the Beauchamp house.
Then, one day, he realizes that Henry is black and Roth is white, the boss's son, and that they shouldn't be sharing everything like brothers. Roth tries to leave Henry and go home by himself. But Henry follows Roth. At night, Roth lets Henry lie down on their usual pallet, and then moves to a different bed himself. When Henry tries to join him, he tells him "No!" (2.3.1.53). Henry gets the message. That's pretty much the end of their friendship.
As a boy, Roth can't tolerate the fact that Lucas Beauchamp refuses to address his father the way the other blacks do. His father explains that it's because they grew up together, but he still thinks it's pretty uppity.
At some level, though, Roth understands that Lucas is the real deal. He thinks,
He's more like old Carothers than all the rest of us put together, including old Carothers. He is both heir and prototype simultaneously of all the geography and climate and biology which sired old Carothers and all the rest of us and our kind. (2.3.1.67)
In case you're thinking that Roth's had a miraculous change of heart, the narrator tells us that Roth thought the above with a combination of "amazement and something very like horror." (2.3.1.67)
Conscience? No.
Roth's been raised by Molly Beauchamp; she's "the only mother he ever knew," (2.3.1.1) and seems to be the only person he had any emotional attachment to. He visits her every month with her favorite candy. The narrator, though, says that Roth actually possesses no real attachment to Molly and just visits her as "a libation to his luck" (2.3.1.1).
When Molly visits him in her very old age to ask for help in divorcing Lucas, he gets really upset by the situation. The narrator clarifies immediately, though, that "It was not just concern, and if he had told himself the truth, not concern for her at all" (2.3.1.27).
Tell Her No.
Roth has a month-long relationship with a woman who ends up having his son. She wants him to marry her, but he won't. Instead of being able to tell her this in person, he gets his elderly Uncle Isaac to do it for him. To make it worse, he also gives Isaac an envelope full of money to hand to his son's mother, as if that satisfies his responsibilities as a father. So add "deadbeat dad" to his list of wonderful qualities.
Roth's portrayed in general as a bitter and nasty guy. He's socially isolated. He hates everyone and is totally cynical about the world. It seems that he feels like life is just one damn thing after another, and none of it's going to end well. And next up? World War II.
Is Roth Edmonds Faulkner's commentary on the younger generation of Southern white men?
Timeline