The Hamlet tells of 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. An ironic take on classical tragedy and a mordant commentary on the grand pretensions of the antebellum South.