One of the dominant figures of Faulkner’s later period is Gavin Stevens. He is introduced in Go Down, Moses as the »paladin of justice, truth and right«. From the very beginning he appears ini a twofold drift of Faulkner’s two allegories of moral consciousness — the biblical and the chivalric. In Intruder in the Dust Gavin Stevens stands by the boy growing up to maturity; as a firm moral guide he imposes his code of »refusing to bear injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame«. In Knight's Gambit Gavin’s role corresponds to the title. And in Requiem for a Nun where the biblical allegory is more prominent Gavin still displays some qualities of the knight. But it is especially in The Town that Gavin reveals a more obvious resemblance to his medieval namesake, Sir Gawain. Besides some hints about Gavin’s attitude of a knight, there are some scenes recalling parallel situations from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Alike to the medieval knight the respectable middle aged attorney has his two single combats and a corresponding temptation scene almost similar to that of the poem. There are further comparable incidents in The Mansion. Sir Gawain’s virtues epitomized in the central quintuplet describing the pentagon on his shield have an affinity with Gavin’s character and function. Like the medieval knight Gavin conceives for himself a kind of quest »a game, a contest, or even a battle, a war«. And very like his correlative he emerges from the quest equally bruised. Gavin Stevens presented as middle-aged in the forties must have been about the same age as Lucius Priest who is eleven at the beginning of the century when his story happens. Lucius’s family claim as their ancestors the founders of Jefferson. So do the family of Gavin Stevens. Lucius Priest, another of Faulkner’s boys growing up to maturity by taking up a moral responsibility was »patterned on the knightly shapes of his male ancestors... trusting too much in the armour and shield of innocence-«. He only appears in Faulkner’s last novel, in the frame of memory, and shaped according to the knightly pattern. In a way he could almost be taken as an interpretation of Gavin Stevens’ boyhood. To the suggestions that the figure of Gavin Stevens has been based on Faulkner’s friend Phil Stone, and to the hints of a possible identification of Stevens with bis author, a third constituent — the literary pattern — might be added. This paper has tried to concentrate on its formative influence in Faulkner’s creation of Gavin Stevens. The fact that his figure seems less of flesh and blood than most of the leading characters from Faulkner’s earlier period points to the partly literary provenance of Gavin Stevens and his function in Faulkner’s allegory. The creation of Gavin Stevens and the ascendant part of the allegory of moral consciousness indicates a definite turn in Faulkner’s literary career.
