Sophonsiba "Sibbey" Beauchamp (I)

Character Analysis

In "Was," Sophonsiba is the roan-toothed sister of Hubert Beauchamp whom he's trying desperately to marry off to Theophilus "Buck" McCaslin. She's vain and fancies herself to be British aristocracy. She thinks the Beauchamp plantation should be called "Warwick" because her brother is supposedly the true Earl of Warwick.

When Buck has to visit the Beauchamp plantation to track down Tomey's Turl, Sibbey jumps at the opportunity to flirt with him. Buck somehow gets confused as to where his guest room is and makes the mistake of entering Sophonsiba's room and lying next to her in bed. She screams, the whole household wakes up, and the next day, Buck finds himself engaged to Sibbey. Buck's twin brother Buddy wins his freedom back. Sibbey marries Buck eventually anyway, and they have a son: Isaac "Ike" McCaslin.

Sibbey's the only young white female character in Go Down, Moses (Faulkner kills all the other ones off before we can get to know them in any real way) and it would be hard to say she is a positive one. She's really pretentious and man-crazy. Plus, she's filled with race-hatred. When she sees that her brother is having a relationship with a black woman, she screams that her mother's house is defiled and demands that the woman be sent away immediately.

She's an example of the white women now forced to deal with black women as free equals. This is probably especially hard for someone like her, who always thought of herself as rather aristocratic to begin with. Sibbey dies when her son Isaac is really young.