"The Same Uniform with White Men": Military Costume, African American War Experience, and Faulkner's Flags in the Dust

Abstract

The US Army uniform issued to Caspey Strother, an African American World War I veteran in William Faulkner's Flags in the Dust, is freighted with contested political meaning. This article shows how the novel works to undermine the connection between military attire and citizenship (in the case of Black soldiers) and illuminates an ironic subtextual kinship between Caspey and his creator. In addition, the article places Caspey's uniform within a larger pattern of references in the text to military material culture, a pattern that ultimately points to the incompatibility of the southern warrior ideal with the realities of armed conflict in the twentieth century.