This essay explores how historical materialism’s perspective of time is beneficial to read William Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses, especially in three stories of six, “Was,” “The Fire and the Hearth” and “The Bear.” Walter Benjamin’s key concept, “Messianic time,” is appropriate terminology for Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses, especially in “Was” and “The Bear.” Tomey’s Turl and Issac are inheritances of the American slavery system which overarches hunting/haunting of antebellum South. Their family bondage is much stronger enough to undermine slavery history and to reshuffle time sequences; Issac becomes familiar with welcoming Messianic time. This essay also explains why Faulkner attempts to let them (Issac, Tomey’s Turl, and Lucas) rewrite not merely the American slavery history but their own family history by employing hunting/haunting “old bear” which bears the traces their family left.
I. Introduction
II. The Presence and the Past in “Was,” and “The Fire and the Hearth.”
III. Messianic Time in “The Bear”
IV. Conclusion