Colonel John Sartoris

Ab Snopes names his younger son after one of the patriarchs of Yoknapatawpha - Colonel John Sartoris - a man who left his mark on the county and its lore as a founding father, planter, Civil War hero, railroad tycoon, and politician. His story is chronicled or remembered in many of the other fictions. In this one he exists only as "Sarty"'s first two names, but that seems to carry its own obligations; when the Justice of the Peace considers questioning Sarty about his father, he remarks, "I reckon anyone named for Colonel Sartoris in this country can't help but tell the truth, can they?" (4). Given the conflicted relationship between Ab and the Sartorises elsewhere, Sarty's full name also carries its own ambivalence.