In this one big not-so-happy McCaslin/Beauchamp/Edmonds family, you can't always count on people to do the right thing. There's a whole lotta betraying, repudiating, relinquishing, forsaking and deserting going on in Go Down, Moses. (Thanks, thesaurus.com!) Almost everyone in the novel is united by "blood" but there are factors at work—slavery, racial hatred, greed, shame—that fracture these relationships and make you want to send the whole bunch of them to Dr. Phil for a good, long talking-to.
Questions About Abandonment
- What toll does abandonment take on the characters who are abandoned? How about on the ones doing the abandoning?
- Do you think Faulkner believes that serious betrayal can ever be rectified?
- What other types of betrayal do we find in the novel in addition to person-on-person abandonment?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
In this novel, it's mostly the mixed-race characters that get abandoned.
In this novel, it's mostly men who do the abandoning.