Go Down Moses

18 Pages 4429 Words

ident of geography," stemming "from wrong & shame," cauasing him to break as a child with his black "foster brother" (Lucas and Molly's son Henry) (107-10). (CONTRAST Isaac McCaslin's pride in "The Bear," always linked with "humility.") "Pantaloon in Black" ("Pantaloon" the foolish old man in Italian commedia dell'arte; butt of clown's jokes in modern pantomime.) The story least connected to the others; the only personal connection is that Rider is Lucas's nephew. Setting contemporaneous with "Fire & Hearth." (And note the comparable significance of the hearth in both stories.) Rider, whose story seems akin to that of a tragic hero in a classical epic (the wrath of Achilles), seems a mere clown to the deputy, who doesn't understand what motivates him/ judges only the outside appearance of his behavior and ridicules it because it doesn't conform to his expectation of how a man in Rider's situation should act. The lack of meaningful communication between blacks and whites is mirrored by the lack of communication between deputy and his wife (who ...