(Young) Bayard Sartoris

Along with Horace Benbow, "Young" Bayard Sartoris is the novel's central character. The twin brother of John Sartoris, the son of John and Lucy Cranston Sartoris, and the grandson of "Old" Bayard. He attended the University of Virginia and then taught flying in Memphis, where he met and married Caroline White. During World War I he joined the Royal Air Force and served in Europe, where his brother was shot down and killed. As a member of the 'Lost Generation,' he suffers from both the horrors of that war and survivor guilt about his brother's loss. While he was still overseas, his wife and newborn child, whom she had named "Bayard" months before his birth, died. He returned home in 1919 and married Narcissa Benbow. He inadvertently caused the death of his grandfather when the old man suffered a heart attack while riding with him in his automobile. While test-flying an aeroplane he knew to be unsafe in Dayton, Ohio, he crashed and was killed on June 11, 1920, according to the date on his tombstone (397). That same day, Narcissa gave birth to his son, Benbow (Bory) Sartoris.