Mollie Beauchamp
This is an excerpt from the paper...
In William Faulkner's fragmented novel Go Down, Moses, the author explores a number of themes in seven fragmented short stories. Chief among these is the debilitating impact of exploitation and slavery on African Americans, race relations, and society. The book's title refers to an African American spiritual that refers to Exodus 5:1 from the Bible and both end with the words "Let my people go." One of the minor characters in the novel, Mollie Beauchamp, is featured in the final story of the novel, "Go Down, Moses." In this story, the death of Mollie's grandson and the appearance of Gavin Stevens, an educated and traveled man, connect the theme of slavery and race in the other stories. For Gavin's recognition of Mollie's desire to be treated like anyone else is Faulkner's way of providing hope that the exploitation and ignorance that enslave African Americans may one day end. In "Go Down, Moses," a black man is questioned in his prison cell by a census taker. We find out his name is "Samuel Beauchamp" and, once the census taker leaves, we discover Samuel is on death row. We also learn that Samuel was raised by his grandmother, Mollie Beauchamp. We then move to Jefferson where Gavin Stevens, an educated lawyer takes up the case of Mollie ("Molly") Beauchamp, an old woman who has had an ominous premonition about her grandson, Samuel, who she also refers to as "Benjamin." Showing the paternalistic stance toward Afr
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r her son's funeral, Gavin seems to experience a change that is meant to represent his ability to change because of being an educated and worldly man, i.e. a man of the twentieth century. Mollie has already maintained in the novel that exploiting God's creatures is a dangerous and punishable practice, "Because God say, 'What's rendered to My earth, it belong to Me unto I resurrect it. And let him or her touch it, and beware" (Faulkner 122). It seems that individuals like Gavin, who is compassionate, educated, and worldly, remain the one hope for African Americans to gain their rightful and equal place in society. Mollie is significant in the entire novel because she represents a catalyst for Gavin's epiphany, one that is sorely needed to help eliminate the ignorance responsible for enslaving and exploiting and entire culture of people.
Despite Gavin's best intentions to understand and help Mollie in her ordeal with Samuel, he is still unable to penetrate African American culture in a way that provides him full understanding. We see this most clearly when he attends the memorial service at Miss Worsham's house. He is highly unsettled by the fact that the blacks in the house keep referring to Benjamin's sale by Edmon
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1245
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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