Twelfth lecture for my students in English 104A, UC Santa Barbara, spring 2012. Course website: http://patrickbrianmooney.nfshost.com/~patrick/ta/s12/index.html

1. Lecture 12: What’s Eula Worth?
English 104A
UC Santa Barbara
Spring 2012
9 May 2012
“I earned [it] myself, weaving at night after Henry and the
chaps was asleep. Some of the ladies in Jefferson would save
up string and such and give it to me and I would weave things
and sell them. I earned that money a little at a time […] I would
take the can outen the chimney and count it now and then
while it was making up enough to buy my chaps some shoes
for next winter. […] I would know them five dollars […] I would
know it if I was to see it again.”
— Mrs. Armstid in The Hamlet, part 4, ch. 1, sec. 2

2. Money
“‘All right,’ he says. And he reaches down and hauls
out the money and pays the two hundred and
eighteen dollars and fifty-two cents in cash and
asks for a receipt.” (Chick Mallison on p. 23; ch. 1)
“Back then, no Jefferson, Mississippi boy ever had
a whole dollar at one time very often, let alone four
at the same time. So we had to trade with him.”
(Chick Mallison on p. 56; ch. 3)
“Aleck Sander said No, that we were all white boys
taking advantage of him because he was a Negro
by asking him to let us do the same thing he did.”
(56)

3. “Anybody with a car: To run out to Varner’s
store quick and get Flem Snopes. He will pay
you, whatever you charge and whatever extry –
ten dollars extry – twenty extry –” (Ratliff
reporting Mink Snopes’s courtroom speech on
p. 87; ch. 4)
“when the oil company got through cussing Mr
[Eck] Snopes for being a grown man with no
more sense than that, they even gave Mrs.
Snopes a thousand dollars to show they were
sorry for her even if she had married a fool.”
(Chick Mallison on p. 117; ch. 7)
Wallstreet Panic Snopes: “I want to learn how
to count money.” (135; ch. 7)

4. “You boys have got Flem Snopes wrong. He’s got
too much respect and reverence not jest for money
but for sharpness too, to outrage and debase one of
them by jest crude robbing and stealing the other
one.” (Gavin Stevens, quoting Ratliff on p. 147, ch.
8)
And again:
“‘I tell you, you got Flem all wrong, all of you have. I
tell you, he aint just got respect for money: he’s got
active’ (he always said active for actual, though, in
this case I believe his choice was better than
Webster’s) ‘reverence for it. The last thing he would
ever do is hurt that bank. Because any bank whether
it’s hisn or not stands for money, and the last thing
he would ever do is to insult and degrade money by
mishandling it.’” (Gavin quoting Ratliff, p. 150; ch. 8)

5. Observations about the body
Gavin, repeating Ratliff, on Eck’s heroism: “And still
without sense enough to jump, let alone Snopes enough,
not even knowing yet that even Jody Varner wasn’t going
to pay him anything for saving even a Varner Negro.” (p.
33; ch. 2) Gavin’s response: “‘Dont tell me they gave him
the dollar,’ I said – all right: cried – to Ratliff. ‘Dont tell me
that!’” (34)
●
I.O. Snopes has a “business” receiving compensation for
mules “accidentally” killed by the railroad. (262; ch. 16)
●
When his employee, who “actively” places the mules in
front of the train, is accidentally killed, the railroad
compensates his widow with $8500. (243; ch. 16)

6. At the Cotillion Ball
“Gowan said it was the way Mrs Snopes and Mr
de Spain began to dance together. […] Mrs
Snopes was dancing that way, letting Mr de Spain
get her into dancing that way in public, simply
because she was alive and not ashamed of it like
maybe right now or even for the last two weeks Mr
de Spain and Uncle Gavin had been ashamed;
was what she was and looked the way she looked
and wasn’t ashamed of it and not afraid or
ashamed, that the little puny people fallen back
speechless and aghast in a shocked circle around
them, could understand [...]”

7. “[…] all the other little doomed mean cowardly
married and unmarried husbands looking
aghast and outraged in order to keep one
another from seeing that what they really
wanted to do was cry, weep because they were
not that brave, each one knowing that even if
there was no other man on earth, let alone in
that ball room, they still could not have
survived, let alone matched or coped with, that
splendor, that splendid unshame.” (Chick
Mallison, pp. 78-9, ch. 3)

8. Eula’s Value (preliminary notes)
●
Flem has already traded on Eula to become
superintendent of the power plant. (p. 145; ch. 8)
After Byron Snopes’s bank embezzlement: “Though
it was not until two days later that the head auditor
was ready to commit himself roughly as to how
much money was missing. […] on the third day
Ratliff said, though I didn’t know what he meant
then: ‘That’s how much it was, was it? At least we
know now jest how much Miz Flem Snopes is
worth.” (Chick Mallison on pp. 125-6; ch. 7)

9. The furniture salesman’s wife, to Eula: “You’re a
trader. I’ll make a trade with you.” (Gavin
Stevens on p. 233; ch. 15)
“‘To be exactly what he needed to exactly fit
exactly what he was going to be tomorrow after
it was announced: a vice president’s wife and
child along with the rest of the vice president’s
furniture in the vice president’s house? Is that
what you tried to tell me?’”
“‘Something like that,’ she said.
“‘Just something like that,’ I said. ‘Because
that’s not enough.’” (Gavin on p. 234; ch. 15)

10. “Not catching his wife with Manfred de Spain yet is
like that twenty-dollar gold piece pinned to your
undershirt on your first maiden trip to what you hope
is going to be a Memphis whorehouse. He dont need
to unpin it yet.” (Chick Mallison, repeating Ratliff’s
words, on p. 30; ch. 1)
“So I can’t think of but one Snopes object that he’s
got left.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll bite.”
“That-ere twenty-dollar gold piece.”
“What twenty-dollar gold piece?”
“Dont you remember what I said that day, about
how when a country boy makes his first Sad-dy night
trip to Memphis, that-ere twenty-dollar bill he wears
pinned inside his undershirt so he can at least get
back home?” (pp. 159-60; ch. 8)

11. Prognostications
Gavin, to V.K. Ratliff: “‘To be president of it
himself,’ I said. ‘No!’ I said. ‘It cant be! It must
not be!’ But he was just watching me.
‘Nonsense!’ I said.
“‘Why nonsense?’ he said.
“‘Because, to use what you call that twentydollar gold piece, he’s got to use his wife, too.
Do you mean to tell me you believe for one
moment that his wife will side with him against
Manfred de Spain?’” (160; ch. 8)