Jody Varner

"About thirty" at the opening of the novel, Jody Varner is a "prime bulging man, slightly thyriodic" who "emanates a quality of invincible and inviolable bachelordom" (7); "looking at him you saw, beyond the flabbiness and the obscuring bulk, the perennial and immortal Best Man, the apotheosis of the masculine Singular" (8). Jody dresses formally, in only one suit which he wears throughout the week: a "glazed collarless white shirt fastened at the neck with a heavy gold collar-button beneath a suit of good black broadcloth" (7). He is the ninth of sixteen children and oversees the running of his father's "scattered farm holdings," including the store and cotton gin at Frenchman’s Bend. He makes sure he gets his sister, Eula, to and from school safely and seeks to protect her from her many suitors, guarding her virginity and the family honor. He also takes the precaution of hiring Flem Snopes as a clerk at the store, hoping to ensure that Ab Snopes will not set fire to his property. It turns out that the Snopes he should have worried about isn't named Ab.