Go Down, Moses Abandonment Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.[Part].Section.Paragraph)

Quote #4

"Are you going to sleep up there?" Henry said. "Well, all right. This here pallet sleeps all right to me, but I reckon I just as lief to if you wants to," and rose and approached the bed and stood over the white boy, waiting him to move over and make room until the boy said, harsh and violent though not loud:

"No!" (2.3.1.55-56)

So how does Roth pay back Molly for raising him from infancy as her own son? He repudiates her son Henry—his foster brother, really—once he's old enough to realize that he's too good for his black bestie. They never slept in the same bed or had meals together after that.

Quote #5

"He probably never held it against old Doom for selling him and his mother into slavery, because he probably felt the damage was already done before then […] (4.1.11)

Sam's father, the Chickasaw chief, sold Sam and his mother into slavery. McCaslin thinks that Sam felt the betrayal wasn't being sold, but having his Chickasaw chief's blood betrayed by his mother's black blood. But really, selling your own son? We're guessing that even the Chickasaw chief didn't want a part-black son.

Quote #6

"Relinquish," McCaslin said. "Relinquish. You, the direct male descendant of him who saw the opportunity and took it, bought the land, took the land, held it to bequeath, no matter how, out of the old grant, the first patent, when it was a wilderness of wild beasts and wilder men […] (5.4.4)

McCaslin thinks Isaac's making a big mistake in abandoning the family business to save himself. Isaac sees this as the only righteous thing to do, but we wonder if things might have been better for everyone if he had stuck around. Look who eventually got the plantation—Roth Edmonds. And he's the worst of the lot.