Go Down, Moses is made up of seven inter-related parts, each self-contained, but all illuminating and extending each other. The book might be called a set of variations on two major themes: the changing relationship, from the time of the frontier to the present day, of the Negro and the white man in Yoknapatawpha County, and the relationship of both to the land they inhabit, which in a few generations has been changed from an abundant wilderness into an economic problem. Several of the sections have already achieved individual fame as separate stories, especially "The Bear," which is one of the highest points in Mr. Faulkner's achievement, and "The Fire and the Hearth," which is a kind of prelude to his novel Intruder in the Dust.