The geography and history in Faulkner works are generally as spotty but significant as the wild horses who involve the actions of the main characters in Spotted Horses. By spotty I mean we get glimpses of life, swatches of character, pieces of consciousness and a truthful but fictional environment. For Yoknapatawpha county is Faulkner’s fictional southern country wherein he created all the fictional characters and landscapes constructed from a lifetime of real characters and locations. This is at once Faulkner’s mastery and his complexity. He never gives us details, characters, settings or ideas that are complete or absolute. He instead paints his literary creations spottily as they come to us in life—in bits and pieces of consciousness created by experiencing and interacting with both internal and external realities. However, Faulkner never gives us absolute answers to the questions his impressionistic style formulate. Instead, we are left much like we are in life, experiencing reality in bits and pieces and after experiencing a certain amount of input we are forced to make our own decisions, interpretations and identity. This is why the story leaves us hanging with Flem Snopes one of the few constants in the story, one about his actions and manipulations aimed at a group of people involved with trading horses.
Flem Snopes is of course the main character in the story. Flem represents many things about southern history, especially after the Civil War. Flem is loyal to none but himself, as he cheats everyone around him including his own relatives. He is the southerner who was loyal to neither north or south but merely self gain. He represents the lowest form of carpetbagger in a sense because he is not a northerner, he is a southerner who steals from north and south without discrimination. Yet, these characters are deeply southern from a traditional sense. They find no moral component
...