Go Down, Moses

Go Down, Moses (1942) is a collection of seven interrelated short stories by William Faulkner.

The elderly Isaac McCaslin tells a story about what happened to his older cousin McCaslin Edmonds when McCaslin was a child in the first story “Was.” One day, McCaslin accompanied his Uncle Buck in pursuit of an escaped slave named Tomey’s Turl. Turl had run away to visit Tennie, a slave of the neighboring Beauchamps, with whom Turl was in love.

After arriving at the Beauchamp plantation, Herbert Beauchamp forces Buck to eat dinner with him and his sister, Sophonsiba, before he will help them look for Turl. Eventually, the group finds Turl at Tennie’s cabin, but Turl runs past them, escaping into the night. Buck and McCaslin decide to stay the night at the Beauchamps’ because it is so late.

That night, Buck accidentally walks into Sophinsita’s room, and Herbert uses the opportunity to force Buck to marry her. The two play a single hand of poker to determine Buck’s fate. Buck loses and has to marry Sophonsita. As part of the conditions, he must also buy Tennie so that she and Turl can be married as well.

In “The Fire and the Hearth,” Lucas Beauchamp, a mixed-race descendant of Herbert, finds evidence of a fortune in gold buried by Buck McCaslin and his son Buddy. Obsessed with finding the gold, Lucas neglects his family to look for it.

Though Lucas is a poor tenant farmer, he is proud of being the last living descendant of the Beauchamps. He is opposed to his daughter Nat marrying a black neighbor George Wilkins, and so plots to frame him as a bootlegger. However, the plan backfires and Lucas is caught with the whiskey still. He escapes prison by allowing George and Nat to marry.

George and Lucas begin looking for the treasure together. They find nothing, and eventually, Molly, Lucas’ wife, threatens to divorce him because of his obsession. Lucas gives up the search, agreeing that he has enough money to live on and doesn’t need more.

“Pantaloon in Black” introduces Rider, a strong and powerful black man, who has lost his young wife, Mannie, and cannot cope with his grief. His family is worried about him, but Rider won’t talk to them. He continues as usual, going to work but quitting abruptly after losing his temper. The white people in town, who do not understand Rider’s behavior, think he is acting irrationally because he is African-American.

Rider goes to a regular poker game at the mill where the white foreman is a known cheat. Rider plays a few hands then, accusing the foreman of cheating, kills him. Rider is arrested but escapes prison. Several days later his body is found hanging, and it is unclear whether he killed himself or was lynched.

Isaac McCaslin relates another story about when he was a young man in “The Old People.” He went on his first hunting trip with the old aristocracy of the town and killed a large buck. Sam Fathers, the Choctaw guide, anoints him with the blood.

Before the group leaves, they see a massive buck coming down out of the woods with an aura of dignity and age about it. Sam tells the men not to shoot it. McCaslin Edmonds tells Isaac that the deer is a forest spirit and that he has seen it before, the day he made his own first kill in the same forest.

In “The Bear,” Isaac grows up to become an expert hunter and resolves to kill Old Ben, a giant and fierce bear that lives in the woods. Though Isaac has seen Old Ben several times, he has never been able to kill him.

Along with some of the other skilled hunters in town, Isaac forms a plan to kill the bear. They use Lion, a large and fierce dog to help them trap it. Lion is killed attacking Old Ben, but Isaac brings the bear down. Right afterward, Sam has a heart attack and dies.

After returning home, Isaac is asked to assume control of his family’s plantation, but he refuses. Isaac is of the opinion that land should not be owned. Instead, he gives the plantation to his cousin McCaslin and moves to town. He gives the money from the sale of the plantation to Sophonsita and the children of Turl and Tennie.

“Delta Autumn” finds an elderly Isaac accompanying some younger relatives on a hunting trip. He talks at length about the dwindling wilderness and human nature. Isaac lays awake at night thinking about how much the forest has changed since he was young and worrying that deforestation will continue until nothing is left.

One of the young men comes in and asks for a knife to kill a deer he has just shot. Though he will not say whether it is a buck or a doe, Isaac knows that the man has killed a doe, which the hunters are forbidden to shoot for reasons of conservation.

In “Go Down, Moses,” Molly Beauchamp has a premonition of harm coming to her long-lost grandson Samuel. She tells the local lawyer, Gavin Stevens, and Gavin discovers that Samuel is about to be executed in Illinois. Gavin pays to have Samuel’s body brought home.