Black vs. White and New vs. Old in Go Down, Moses In the novel Go Down, Moses, William Faulkner examines the relationship between blacks and whites in the South. His attempt to trace the evolution of black and white roles and mentalities from emancipation to the 1940s focuses on several key transitional figures. In “The Fire and the Hearth,” Lucas Beauchamp specifically represents two extremes of pride: for the elders, proud of their land and their traditions; and in the new generation, whose pride has forced them to break away from Southern traditions. Lucas's background uniquely shapes him for this role. He represents the general feelings of both blacks and whites due to his mixed heritage, and represents the old and the new through his simultaneous pride and rebellion against his blood connection to Lucius Quintus Carothers McCaslin. The new generation, both white and black, rebelled against the respect that Southern elders had for land and tradition, although each rebelled for different reasons. As a sharecropper on Zack Edmonds' farm, Lucas displays his pride in his connection to Carothers McCaslin in a subtle, often unspoken way. Yet this pride always exists parallel to his defensive pride in black blood mixed with white blood. Lucas credits Carothers' blood in him as the source of the courage he needed to confront and attempt to shoot Zack Edmonds. But at the same time, the action initiated by that courage was an act of rebellion against what Lucas perceived as white oppression of his rights: Then, without yet getting up, he took the cartridge from his pocket and looked at it again , reflecting: the live cartridge, not even stained, not corroded, the… paper medium…, as they were no longer relevant to their world. All in all, Lucas Beauchamp's mixed heritage leads to opposite extremes of pride. Faulkner uses this duality to represent both blacks and whites in their transition from the old to the new generation. Lucas lives in the post-emancipation period, but has strong ties to ancient Southern traditions due to the ties he has to Lucius Quintus Carothers McCaslin. Lucas' character therefore represents the new, the old, the black and the white. It covers the broad spectrum of Southern mentalities in the period covered by Faulkner in Go Down, Moses. Faulkner created a complex and vital character in Lucas to reveal the complexity and intertwining of all the different aspects of the South: racial and generational. Works Cited: Faulkner, William. Come down Moses. New York: The Modern Library, 1995.