Faulkner the Stoic: Honor, Evil, and the Snopeses in the Snopes Trilogy

Were William Faulkner’s characters determined to their actions, perhaps by cosmic forces or divine providence, causal laws or genetic traits? In brief, no. Still, I argue that Faulkner does employ hard determinism in relation to one character, and this character represents an important exception: Flem Snopes of the Snopes trilogy. Flem Snopes’s brand of evil was not moral evil (i.e., evil characteristic of genuine agents) but instead a distinct variety of metaphysical evil. In order to demonstrate this, I contrast the moral psychology of Flem with that of his murderer, Mink Snopes, by appeal to the Faulknerian virtue of honor.