GibsonsInAC

When in 1945 Faulkner decided to write what he called a "new section" for The Sound and the Fury - what is now published as "Appendix Compsons: 1699-1945" - he added three generations of ancestors to the Compson family tree. The Gibson family we see in this text still goes back no further than Dilsey, but it now includes an unnamed husband for Frony (though this does not clear up the question about Luster's father), and gives us a look at the Gibsons beyond Yoknapatawpha: after first moving to St. Louis to be with her husband, Frony now lives in Memphis where she takes care of Dilsey; and like Versh in the earlier novel, TP (as Faulkner here spells T.P.) now lives in Memphis too. (Curiously, Versh is the only one of Dilsey's children not mentioned in the "Appendix.") It is surely significant that the Gibson family has apparently all left Yoknapatawpha. But even in "the Negro residence section of Memphis" (336), they are still mainly defined in terms of the Compson story. Although it might be interesting to know why Dilsey's family has migrated to Memphis, it is a current event in Caddy's life that takes the narrative there. And though the "Appendix" devotes the story's last words to Frony, TP, Luster and Dilsey, it does so after drawing a kind of color line setting them apart: "These others were not Compsons. They were black." And it then sums up their four lives in 92 words, the last two of which (a kind of anti-epitaph under Disley's name) testify to the strength of the Negro character, but mean that again, as in the original novel, this last section is not really Dilsey's: "They endured."

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"Appendix Compson"
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Gibsons in Appendix Compson
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NOT USED: At the request of Malcolm Cowley, who was putting together a selection of Faulkner's works for Viking, Faulkner in 1945 wrote what he called a "new section" for The Sound and the Fury, titled "Appendix Compson 1699-1945." It ends with entries on four of the Gibsons: Dilsey, Frony, Luster and TP (as Faulkner here spells T.P.). Faulkner did not refer to the earlier novel as he wrote the "Appendix," and his typescript seems to switch the last two: Luster frequents Memphis' Beale Street and TP is the 14-year-old boy who takes care of Benjy. Cowley worked with Faulkner to correct this and some of the other inconsistencies, and when the "Appendix" appeared in The Portable Faulkner (1946), TP appeared "on Memphis' Beale Street" and Luster is "aged 14" (721). This is the way the Gibsons appeared editions of the novel for the next forty years. But when Noel Polk prepared his "corrected text" for the Library of America edition in 1984,

Affiliated Characters

Dilsey - "Appendix: Compson"
Frony - "Appendix: Compson"
Luster - "Appendix: Compson"
TP - "Appendix: Compson"
Unnamed Husband of Frony - "Appendix: Compson"