Quentin Compson

The narrator notes that his Grandfather "calls my name" twice at the end of the story (358, 359), though he never mentions the name itself. From the his siblings' names, however - Caddy and Jason - readers could be expected to know he is Quentin Compson. The eldest son of one of the leading families in Yoknapatawpha, Quentin is a major character in two of Faulkner's major novels, The Sound and the Fury(published in 1929, two years before the story) and Absalom, Absalom! (1936). In this story, Quentin is twelve years old and therefore deemed old enough to go to Sam Fathers' shop when he visits the family farm with his grandfather. While Quentin narrates the story we read, his primary function is to listen to the story Sam tells him. That story - about racial exploitation and miscegenation - seems to make a significant impression on Quentin, though he admits he did "not quite understand" it (360). He will confront the same issues later in Absalom.