Uncle+Buck

Theophilus McCaslin, more commonly known as “Uncle Buck” first appears in // The Unvanquished // in Chapter 2 “Retreat” on page 46. He is the twin brother of Amodeus McCaslin, more commonly known as “Uncle Buddy,” and the two “bachelors” live together on a large plantation with “a big colonial house on it which their father had built and which people said was still one of the finest houses in the country when they inherited it” (46-47). The plantation workers are the ones who actually reside in the large manor house, while Uncle Buck and Uncle Buddy live “in a two-room log house with about a dozen dogs” (47). This housing arrangement would be deemed unusual at the time, and is an example of the way in which the brothers were thought of as being “ahead of their time,” (48) which is how Bayard’s father described the brothers to him at one point. Bayard says that his father explained that Uncle Buck and Uncle Buddy “not only possessed, but put into practice, ideas about social relationship that maybe fifty years after they were both dead people would have a name for...They believed that land did not belong to people but that people belonged to land and that the earth would permit them to live on and out of it and use it only so long as they behaved… (48). When Colonel John Sartoris began to form his regiment, the brothers were deemed too old (they were in their seventies) to join, much to their chagrin, yet the compromise they decided upon was that only one brother could join, and the resulting poker games established Uncle Buddy as the one who would join Colonel Sartoris’ regiment.

That left Uncle Buck to tend to the plantation, and maintained his presence in the town. Bayard meets Uncle Buck when he and Ringo dip into town briefly on their way to Tennessee, with Granny saying her goodbyes to Mrs. Compson nearby. Uncle Buck can be seen praising both Colonel Sartoris and Bayard (towards the end) throughout // The Unvanquished //, and during Bayard and Buck’s first meeting, he is heralding Colonel Sartoris’ reputation in a heated, long-winded way: “‘By Godfrey, there he is! There’s John Sartoris’ boy!’ The captain came up and looked at me. ‘I’ve heard of your father,’ he said. ‘Heard of him?’ Uncle Buck shouted… ‘Who aint heard about him in this country?’” (51). His excited outburst in the middle of the town square is not an unusual occurrence, made apparent by Faulkner’s further description of him, in the middle of this outburst, critiquing the quality of men in Colonel Sartoris’ regiment: “‘Fools I say!’ he shouted, shaking the stick at me and glaring with his watery fierce eyes like the eyes of an old hawk, with the people along the street listening to him and smiling where he couldn’t see it” (51). This spirited, passionate interaction paints Bayard a complex but largely positive picture of Uncle Buck, and it is in this interaction too that Bayard and Ringo realize, via Uncle Buck, that Colonel Sartoris was actually voted out of his regiment so that he could retire home to his family, but that he voluntarily remained away.

We reunite with Uncle Buck a few chapters later in “ Vendée” who is fervently attending Granny’s funeral, and the last guest remaining: “when I thought they had all gone I looked around and there was Uncle Buck. He came up to us, with one elbow jammed into his side and his beard drawn over to one side like it was another arm, and his eyes red and mad like he hadn’t slept much, and holding his stick like he was fixing to hit somebody with it and he didn’t much care who. ‘What you boys going to do now?’ he said” (158). In this scene, Uncle Buck maintains his commitment to the Sartoris family by caring enough to ask Bayard and Ringo what they honestly intended to do now that Granny was gone, and Father still not home. Once Uncle Buck learns that the boys intend to avenge Granny’s death immediately, Buck declares that he will accompany them on this journey, whether they like it or not.

Uncle Buck’s dedication to this family is further shown by the immediacy with which they left for this journey, and for how many months they spent together in search of vengeance, with Uncle Buck frequently leading the way literally, on the path and ideologically, with his ideas, pushing through his persistent arm injury. During this journey, there are pointed descriptions of Uncle Buck that are overtly feminine, and where he is frequently compared to women and girls in various ways. The descriptions don’t use adjectives or details that could be coined as traditionally feminine but rather, utilize direct comparisons of either Uncle Buck’s appearance or the current placement of his pistol, for example, to a “a lady” “Granny” and “a girl’s pigtail” which can be seen below (bold emphasis is my own): “He wore the pistol on a loop of lace leather around his neck and stuck into his pants **like a lady’s watch **” (166). “...he cussed then sure enough, looking **a little like Granny** looked, like all old people look when they have been hurt” (170). “...and the leather thong of the pistol hanging down his back **like a girl’s pigtail **, and his mouth open and his eyes blinking at me and Ringo” (172). The way Faulkner seems to directly compare Uncle Buck nonchalantly yet specifically to women and girls during this journey perhaps could speak to the fluidity that accompanied the revolutionary post-civil war times. This was a revolutionary time in race relations, regarding the recently dispossessed group of plantation workers. These descriptions of Uncle Buck could speak to a revolutionary turn during this time that was occurring regarding gender, as well, as we met the powerful cousin Drusilla earlier on who joined a regiment in battle, and experienced the stoic matriarchal leadership that encapsulated Granny during much of the text. Although the descriptions chosen in these moments of Uncle Buck may perfectly depict the scene, their overt femininity may also signal to a changing of the tides during that time that allows for fluid movement between gender depictions.