Unnamed White Men of Yoknapatawpha

Character Key Number: 
1281
Display Name: 
Unnamed White Men of Yoknapatawpha
Sort Name: 
Unnamed White Men of Yoknapatawpha
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
Yes
Biography: 

In "Skirmish at Sartoris" and again in The Unvanquished Bayard refers to the men who work with John Sartoris to resist any effort to give voting rights to the recently emancipated slaves as "all the men in the county" and "all the other men in Jefferson" (69, 58; 204, 188). They assemble in the town square "with pistols in their pockets" (69) to prevent black men from voting, and ride out afterwards to the Sartoris place with John and Drusilla to cast their own votes in the election. There are "about a hundred" of them, which clearly makes that word "all" an overstatement (72, 208), but it is also worth noting that whenever Bayard says "all the men in town" (68, 202), he means all the white men.