V.K. Suratt

Suratt plays a minor role in Faulkner's first Yoknapatawpha novel, but in time will re-appear in nine more of Faulkner's works, though beginning with "A Bear Hunt" (1934) he is named V. K. Ratliff; Faulkner made the change after a real person named Suratt objected. A traveling salesman, based in Jefferson, who sold mainly sewing machines, but also on occasion parlor organs, radios, and televisions, Suratt grew up on a farm, and was a neighbor of the Snopes family. Much later in Faulkner's career he reveals that Ratliff is descended directly from one of the first white inhabitants of Yoknapatawpha, and that the "V.K." stands for "Vladimir Kyrilytch." In the last two volumes of the Snopes trilogy Faulkner uses him as one of the books' three narrators.