Unnamed Jefferson Townspeople 7

One of the narrative devices that Faulkner regularly deploys is using the larger population of Jefferson as a kind of chorus to provide commentary on the characters or events of a specific story. In almost every instance it seems fair to say that the "townspeople" he uses this way are implicitly the white people, but it seems more accurate to create a separate "Character=Jefferson Townspeople" for each text in which the device occurs. In "Miss Zilphia Gant" the commentary provided by "people in our town" on the story of Mrs. Gant and her daughter Zilphia is considerably harsher than the narrative's perspective (381). "They" think and speak as a group (371). As a group they are nosy rather than concerned, more judgmental than helpful; in the end they accept Miss Zilphia on her unconventional terms, though they "still call her Miss Zilphia Gant" even after she tells them the story of her (second) marriage (381).