Flem Snopes's knack for verisimilitude in Faulkner's Snopes trilogy.(Special Issue: William Faulkner)

A recurring theme in William Faulkner's oeuvre is humankind's propensity to sacrifice private integrity to "respectability"(1) This theme is clearly drawn in his treatment of Flem Snopes, the poor sharecropper-turned-clerk, in the trilogy.(2) When Faulkner began writing the trilogy, he was, I believe, seeking to "find" in his Yoknapatawpha a few souls, such as Flem, who would be brave enough to combine private integrity with civic virtue. Faulkner, then, seems to be implying that Flem is not inherently evil. When Gavin Stevens, in The Mansion,(3) according to Ratliff, defines…