Charles (Chick) Mallison

Charles Mallison, Jr., is his birth name, Charles Mallison is the name at the top of all the chapters he narrates in The Town, but readers of the Yoknapatawpha fictions probably know him best by his nickname - Chick - which is what his uncle Gavin and V.K. Ratliff, the novel's other two narrators, generally call him. He is the youngest member of one of the oldest and most prominent Jefferson families. Although he was not born when the events of the narrative begin, Charles narrates 10 of the novel's 24 chapters, including the first and the last. He says he has learned about events before his birth from his cousin Gowan. He is recruited by Gavin and Ratliff as their messenger and assistant in keeping a wary eye on the Snopeses, particularly Flem. The professed focus of The Town is on the progress of the Snopes family in Jefferson, but it is also is about Chick's growth from childhood (when he cannot understand most of what the other two narrators tell him about Eula Snopes, or her lover, or her husband) through adolescence (when he can experience firsthand the desire that Eula inspires in all the men who see her) to a maturity that enables him to understand her tragedy and the larger social forces at work in the story. As a narrator, Charles is clear and astute with a wry style of reporting on the characters and events.