The Hamlet, the first novel of Faulkner's Snopes trilogy, is both an
ironic take on classical tragedy and a mordant commentary on the grand
pretensions of the antebellum South and the depths of its decay in the
aftermath of war and Reconstruction. It tells of the advent and the rise
of the Snopes family in Frenchman's Bend, a small town built on the
ruins of a once-stately plantation. Flem Snopes--wily, energetic, a man
of shady origins--quickly comes to dominate the town and its people with
his cunning and guile.