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ON THE FIRST PAGE OF WILLIAM FAULKNER'S THETOWN, IN THE VERY second paragraph, Chick Mallison asserts himself, and by relationship and affiliation the other narrators in this novel, as the voice of establishment Jefferson: "So when I say 'we' and 'we thought' what I mean is Jefferson and what Jefferson thought" (3). Gavin Stevens soon thereafter excludes the Snopes family as Others with a we/they dichotomy: "when I say 'they' I mean Snopeses" (29). Since no narrator holds any qualms about speaking authoritatively, the reader faces considerable challenges throughout this novel in separating fact from speculation or projection. Many events in The Town are told secondhand-often reported but not witnessed, filtered through consciousness, preconception, and especially the social privilege and unspoken rules of the "we" group.
Gavin Stevens's chapters, in particular, seem marked by obsessive, unyielding antipathy to all things Snopes, especially to Flem Snopes. Gavin never understands, or perhaps simply refuses to understand, that Flem adopts and appropriates the social processes in Jefferson that have long been practiced and maintained for the benefit of established persons and families. While Gavin sees Flem as creating evil where there was before only virtue, Flem actually becomes a mirror, the most honest reflection of all that Jefferson really believes about civic virtue and justice.1
Faulkner's narrative strategy in The Townhas led some critics to limit their views of Flem Snopes to the pronouncements of Gavin Stevens and V. K. Ratliff.2 These two characters are accepted and established members of the Jefferson social and economic hierarchy, with Gavin much better placed by birth. Neither character views Flem sympathetically, though Gavin remains unrelentingly harsh. Raymond J. Wilson, III, provides an excellent overview of criticism situating Flem as evil usurper in Jefferson, in line with Gavin's view. For example, Wilson quotes Paul Levine as writing, "Society does not corrupt Flem Snopes; instead he corrupts society" (432). Wilson bases his reading of The Townon Flem's ability to imitate the behavior of privilege in Jefferson, pointing out that critics have erroneously emphasized "the unique characteristics which they believe Flem inherently possessed" (432). Wilson would have us consider instead how "the steps of Flem's climb reveal the moral shortcomings of Jefferson" (433). Frances Louisa Nichol reports, "Faulkner scholarship traditionally follows Gavin Stevens and...