[1] Mink Snopes, on trial for murder, waits for his successful cousin Flem to show up and use his power and influence to save him from prison.

Gavin Stevens, one of the narrators, and an intellectual and idealist, was in love with Flem's wife, Eula Varner, who committed suicide before the events of this novel.

The Mansion deals with the South's displaced economic landscape in the first half of the twentieth century, rural populism, and racial and social tensions.

Theodore Greene has discussed the key characters of the novel and related them to his interpretation of Faulkner's general philosophy of life.

[2] Enrique García Díez has examined the change in stature of Mink in the course of the novel, and makes analogies with older literary forms and figures.