How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.[Part].Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
[Lucas Beauchamp was] not only the oldest man but the oldest living person on the Edmonds plantation, the oldest McCaslin descendant even though in the world's eye he descended not from McCaslins but from McCaslin slaves, almost as old as old Isaac McCaslin who lived in town, supported by what Roth Edmonds chose to give him, who would own the land and all on it if his just rights were only known, if people just knew how old Cass Edmonds, this one's grandfather, had beat him out of his patrimony; almost as old as Isaac, almost, as old Isaac was, coeval with old Buck and Buddy McCaslin who had been alive when their father, Carothers McCaslin, got the land from the Indians back in the old time when men black and white were men. (2.1.1.4)
Got all that? We didn't think so.
Quote #2
But they were the old days, the old time, and better men than these; Lucas himself made one, himself and old Cass coevals in more than spirit even, the analogy only the closer for its paradox:--old Cass a McCaslin only on his mother's side and so bearing his father's name though he possessed the land and its benefits and responsibilities; Lucas a McCaslin on his father's side though bearing his mother's name and possessing the use and benefit of the land with none of the responsibilities. Better men:--old Cass, a McCaslin only by the distaff yet having enough of old Carothers McCaslin in his veins to take the land from the true heir simply because he wanted it and knew he could use it better and was strong enough, ruthless enough, old Carothers McCaslin enough. (2.1.2.5)
This passage illustrates a major theme: that descent through the male line of Old McCaslin gives someone more claim than descent through the distaff (female) side. The more "old Carothers" you have, though, the better, no matter where it comes from. At least that's what Lucas thinks. Isaac would probably disagree.
Quote #3
... his own wife, the black woman, keeping his baby in the white man's house and he now living alone in the house which old Cass had built for them when they married, keeping alive on the hearth the fire he had lit there on their wedding day and which had burned ever since though there was little enough cooking down on it now... (2.1.2.11)
The fire in the hearth is a symbol of an unbreakable marriage bond (which nevertheless almost breaks in "The Fire and the Hearth"). Note that Lucas and Molly's marriage is the only one in the entire novel that endures over time.
Quote #4
Lucas was not only the oldest person living on the place, older even than Edmonds's father would have been, there was that quarter strain not only of white blood and not even Edmonds blood, but of old Carothers McCaslin himself, from whom Lucas was descended not only by a male line but in only two generations, while Edmonds was descended by a female line and five generations back... (2.3.1.27)
The narrator will not tire of telling us how inferior it is to be descended from the female line, and how the bloodline gets diluted over the generations. Everyone seems to believe that special manly traits only get transmitted through the father. Well, maybe they were clued in to some Y-chromosome specific genetic traits. So ahead of their time!
Quote #5
There had been three of them once: James, then a sister named Fonsiba, then Lucas, children of Aunt Tomey's Turl, old Carothers McCaslin's son, and Tennie Beauchamp, whom Edmonds's great-uncle Amodeus McCaslin won from a neighbor in a poker game in 1859. Fonsiba married and went to Arkansas to live and never returned, though Lucas continued to hear from her until her death. But James, the eldest, ran away before he became of age and didn't stop until he had crossed the Ohio River and they never heard from or of him again at all--that is, his white kindred ever knew. (2.3.1.28)
The breaking up of families was a legacy of slavery that continued to affect African American families after Abolition. Here, Lucas and his siblings spread out to different corners of the country and lose touch. The narrator tells us that James left to avoid the memory of slavery and the whims of his white relatives, who at times refused to acknowledge him. Like many free blacks, James headed to the North because of the highly charged racial atmosphere in the South.
Quote #6
And by God Lucas beat him, he thought. Edmonds, he thought, harshly and viciously. Edmonds. Even a n***** McCaslin is a better man, better than all of us. (2.3.1.65)
Can Roth actually be admitting that male descent even trumps race?
Quote #7
...and now this: breaking up after forty-five years the home of the woman who had been the only mother he, Edmonds, ever knew, who had raised him, fed him from her own breast as she was actually doing her own child, who had surrounded him always with care for his physical body and for his spirit too, teaching him his manners, behavior—to be gentle with his inferiors, honorable with his equals, generous to the weak and considerate of the aged, courteous, truthful and brave to all—who had given him, motherless, without stint or expectation of reward that constant and abiding devotion and love which existed nowhere else in this world for him... (2.3.1.66)
Roth is not unique as a white plantation owner's child in having been raised and cared for by an African American woman. In fact, this was common enough to lead to the "mammy" stereotype in many works of fiction. Another point is that the interracial ties of the McCaslin family go beyond blood; Roth believes that Molly was the biggest influence on him as a person. Unfortunately, he forgets a lot of the lessons she taught him.
Quote #8
"Tennie's Jim," he said. "Tennie's Jim." […] "It's a boy, I reckon. They usually are, except the one that was its own mother, too." ( 6.102)
Isaac realizes that Roth's baby, revealed as Tennie's Jim's great-grandson (got that?), completes the family cycle, repeating the original miscegenation of old Carothers and bringing back together the black and white descendants of the family. There's another cool parallel here, because the woman, like Isaac, turns her back on that family history. She plans to go back up North and live there.
Quote #9
[she] lifted down the horn, the one which General Compson had left him in his will, covered with the unbroken skin from a buck's shank and bound with silver.
"What?" she said
It's his. Take it." (6.106-8)
In "Delta Autumn," Isaac, despite his outrage, gives the baby General Compson's horn, something really meaningful to Isaac, something that represents the continuity of the generations. Isaac's the last remaining white male McCaslin, so that line will die with him. This story would be a great ending to the complicated family history, because it points to the family's future. But there's one more story to tell: "Go Down, Moses."
Quote #10
[Miss Worsham said,] "Can nothing be done? Mollie's and Hamp's parents belonged to my grandfather. Mollie and I were born in the same month. We grew up together as sisters would." (7.2.21)
It sounds like Molly's mother helped to raise Miss Worsham in the same way Molly later raised Roth along with her own son Henry. Molly's parents must have remained on the plantation after emancipation and the girls grew up together.