Intruder In The Dust

Charles Mallison is the young protagonist of Intruder in the Dust. His youth is an important part of his character, distinguishing him from the generations who have come before. While Charles is a part of this new generation of men from the American South, however, he unknowingly remains beholden to the views of the previous generations. Charles’s relationship with Lucas is evidence of this. Lucas helps Charles to escape from a creek then offers to dry and feed Charles in his house nearby. Charles, a young man who has grown up with African American servants in his house, who has slowly absorbed the racial politics of the previous generation, finds himself offended when Lucas refuses to take money for helping him. Charles cannot express why Lucas’s pride offends him so much. He does not consider himself a racist, nor particularly aggrieved by African American people, yet he has internalized an understanding of the racial order of the world that situates him (a white man) at the top of the hierarchy. Lucas’s pride, therefore, offends this sense of hierarchy, even if Charles lacks the understanding of his world needed to vocalize this. Some years later, when he sees Lucas being dragged into jail to answer for a murder charge, Charles is shocked.