The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project

At Bill Terrel's murder trial, in a small but telling moment, his daughter denies her father's story that the man he killed had seduced her.

At his murder trial, Bill Terrel tries to blame his son for the crime. This son both denies the charge and "proves an alibi," resulting in his father's conviction (59).

An unnamed accomplice helps Bill Terrel carry a body through the bushes and "fling it under the train" (59).

If you believe what Bill Terrel says, he man he killed seduced his daughter. But the daughter denies this, Terrel's story is not believed by the jury that convicts him of "Manslaughter," and the rest of Faulkner's story supports the idea that it is a lie (55). On the other hand, who this victim really was, or why Terrel killed him - that remains a mystery.

The Governor's grandfather seems to have been a man of the lower classes with a chip on his shoulder similar to the one Bill Terrel carries. As the Governor says of him to Gavin Stevens, "Mr. Stevens, you are what my grandpap would have called a gentleman. He would have snarled it at you, hating you and your kind; he might very probably have shot your horse from under you someday from behind a fence - for a principle" (57).

Unusual in appearance, Bill Terrel is described as "a tall man, a huge man, with a dark aquiline face like an Indian's except for the pale yellow eyes and a shock of wild, black hair." When he addresses the Governor's Pardon Board, he speaks in a "queer, high, singsong filled with that same abject arrogance" that characterizes his appearance (55). He convinces Monk to kill the Warden, and seems connected to Monk in many ways - he owns a gas station, and Monk works at one; he yearns for a pardon, and Monk refuses one; He trusts no one, and Monk trusts everyone.

The narrator presents the Pardon Board as a "puppet Board" which remains "completely under" the thumb of the Governor (54-55). They are apparently appointed to the Board based on their ability to deliver votes for him.

Warden Gambrell has an unnamed Negro cook who works in his house as a trusty; when the warden's pistol goes missing, he has the cook "severely beaten" on the assumption that he stole it (53). Historically, there were female prisoners at Parchman's, but in this story it seems more likely Faulkner is thinking of the cook as male.

The narrator points out that given his rural background, Monk would have seen "the cotton and the corn in the fields, and men working it" - although that doesn't solve the mystery of Monk's last words (52).

The conductor of the train that takes Monk to prison is described by Monk himself as the "fellow in the cap" (51). Monk tells Gavin how this man called out each stop as they reached it.