The family silver at the heart of the first half of The Unvanquished is chiefly characterized by its movement – it is buried under a tree, unburied, carried upstairs, carried downstairs, hauled away by mule, hauled back again, reburied, dug up, and in the end finally multiplies from one into ten chests of silver. In this process of movement and proliferation, the silver represents something larger about what the South stands for: what at first seemed to be representative of a sentimental, individual family history is revealed to be representative of wealth on a much larger scale, built on a foundation of slavery and violence.

At the beginning of the novel, the silver represents family history, of a sort; both valuable but also of some sentimental value. There is perhaps nothing more evocative of family history than silver, and the Sartoris family silver includes knives and forks and a table service. The family ate with the silver knives and forks instead of “the kitchen knives and forks” (14); it was this that separated them from the men and women working in the kitchen. That these were once in regular use by the family is suggestive of how close the past can be – that the same implements that the family once ate with are now nearly all that remains of this history, especially as the family faces the Yankee army. In the face of the incoming obliteration, it is the silver that could, even after houses are burned down and men killed, connect the family back to this history. (It seems that in Faulkner, even if the family still has relevance and money at the time of writing, we are always looking back at it through the lens of its future irrelevance.) Granny’s attempt to save the silver becomes a useless but still admirable indication of her willingness to fight for this family history, and to save the family from penury.

But of course, at the heart of this wealth is the fact that, like so much wealth, it is built on the foundation of violence and slavery. When Loosh walks away with the silver to freedom, the following exchange reveals the corruption at the heart of this wealth, a corruption that until now has been chiefly elided by the excitement of the movement-driven plot. Loosh says:

“I going. I done been freed; God’s own angel proclamated me free and gonter general me to Jordan. I dont belong to John Sartoris now; I belongs to me and God.”

“But the silver belongs to John Sartoris,” Granny said. “Who are you to give it away?”

“You ax me that?” Loosh said. “Where John Sartoris? Whyn’t he come and ax me that? Let God ax John Sartoris who the man name that give me to him. Let the man that buried me in the black dark ax that of the man what dug me free.” (75)

Until now, the silver’s movement has been rather exciting, and the reader has been placed in a position to cheer for Granny getting away from the Yankees with it. But here, Loosh abruptly repositions the ownership of the silver as just as valid as John Sartoris’ ownership of him.

And the meaninglessness of the family history, and of the the sentimentalism that might have marginally redeemed Granny’s attachment to the silver, is similarly revealed to be illegitimate when, with a letter, Granny becomes responsible for ten trunks of silver, which are described in exactly the same terms as the original: Granny describes “The chest of silver tied with hemp rope” (109); the General’s letter describes: “Ten (10) chests tied with hemp rope and containing silver.” The trunk was never opened; the silver itself is an abstraction. In its proliferation, though, it begins to hint at the scale of the wealth of the south. A thousand trunks of silver can’t really be comprehended. From one to ten, though: the mind can begin to grasp the scale of the wealth of the south.

That Granny accepts this commission further shows that this silver is no longer about any particular family; the trunks are essentially interchangeable. The important thing is the wealth itself, and the history of enslavement that this silver represents is emphasized by its being accompanied by 110 slaves. The General’s letter describes: “Ten (10) chests tried with hemp rope and containing silver. One hundred ten (110) mules captured loose near Philadelphia in Mississippi. One hundred 110 (110) negroes of both sexes belonging to and having strayed from the same locality” (112). The silver is purely about wealth built by agriculture (the mules) and slavery, in which the men and women who labor for it are listed after both the silver and the mules. Granny herself had listed “The chest of silver tied with hemp rope. The rope was new. Two darkies, Loosh and Philadelphy. The mules, Old Hundred and Tinney” (109). Here, at least, Loosh and Philadelphy are listed before the mules, but they still come after the silver (and they are described and named in exactly the same terms as the mules – essentially as equals).

While the silver at the beginning of the novel seems almost incidental to the plot – a sort of McGuffin – it is revealed to be practically central to it. And there is a problem of the reader’s sympathies in regards to its ownership: the default position, certainly at the beginning, is essentially pro-Granny. There seems to be no great reason that the Yankees should have it either. The silver, then, becomes a metaphor for both the wealth and history of the south, as well as the dilemma of its future: the men and women whose actual labor purchased the silver will receive nothing for it.

All quotes are from the Vintage edition.