Pantaloon

"Pantaloon in Black" is the title of the third story in //Go Down, Moses.// Knowing what Faulkner means when he uses pantloon directly influences readers' interpretation of the short story. The Oxford English Dictionary provides two main defintions for pantaloon. The first refers to a stock character from 16th Century Italian theater: "(in Italian commedia dell'arte) a Venetian character representing authority and the older generation, typically depicted as a lean, foolish old man in a predominantly red costume that included Turkish slippers, pantaloons (see sense 2c), a close-fitting jacket, and a skullcap." The second refers to pants, “Trousers, breeches, or drawers. Usu. in pl.” (pantaloon, n.).



Critics tend to mention both senses of the word in publications about //Go Down, Moses//. Few elaborate on the character of the Pantaloon, and rightly so. The characterization of Pantaloon has no counterpart in "Pantaloon in Black." Rider may not be the Pantalooon's foil, but the 24 year-old victim of a lynching is certainly not an old man with social authority. That is why, when critics do expound on the allusion to the Pantaloon, they broaden their focus to include the entire category of 16th Century Italian theater, commedia dell'arte. It is in this realm that the tragic events following Mannie's death can bew viewed as comic or tragi-comic. For tragi-comedy, Heyde specifically points to the ridiculous appearance of several of Rider's pantomimes (i.e. picture the 6 foot, 200 lb Rider madly shoveling dirt onto his wife's grave with what looked like a child's beach shovel in his hands).

Southern literature scholar Sally Wolff, who made the connections between an uncovered ledger and Faulkner's work, believes that Faulkner's use of pantaloon in //Go Down, Moses// has motivations much closer to home: "It seems even more likely, however, that Faulkner would have noticed this word in a document readily accessible to him near his home and derived its implications from real people who had lived close by - the slaves on the ancestral land of his childhood friend. The repeated references to "pantaloons" in [Faulkner's] diary thus seem to locate the origin of "Pantaloon in Black" more firmly in slave history" (Wolff 13).



Faulkner, William. Go Down, Moses. New York: Vintage, 1994. Print.

Heyde, William A., III. "Tragi-Comedy and Comi-Tragedy in "Pantaloon in Black"." //Pantaloon in Black//. Southeast Missouri State University, n.d. Web. 14 May 2017.

Wolff, Sally. “William Faulkner and the Ledgers of History.” //The Southern Literary Journal//, vol. 42, no. 1, 2009, pp. 1–16., www.jstor.org/stable/40593317.