Character Keys

In "Death Drag" Vernon owns the café where Captain Warren and Jock talk. He seems like an attentive and successful businessman; people know his place by his name, and Jock and Captain Warren seem comfortable there. He may be the same "Vernon" who is married to the Sheriff's daughter in The Sound and the Fury, though there is no direct evidence of that. He is certainly not the Vernon - Vernon Tull - who lives in Frenchman's Bend.

Walter Ewell is a farmer in Yoknapatawpha, but in the six fictions where he appears or is mentioned he is always described as (to quote The Mansion) one of the "best hunters in the county" (34) - an assertion born out repeatedly on the annual hunting trips to Major de Spain's camp in the woods. When the unnamed boy in "The Bear" hunts his first deer on his own it is symbolically appropriate that "he borrows Walter Ewell's rifle" to do so (290).

Wendell Wilkie was the Republican candidate for President who ran against President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940; he is mentioned in Go Down, Moses on a list of political figures that includes both Roosevelt and Hitler (322).

Never given a first name, Winterbottom is a farmer in Frenchman's Bend who has a small role in two texts and is mentioned in a third. He is present at the auction in "Spotted Horses." Light in August begins when Lena Grove walks past his farm. And Flem Snopes mentions that he boarding "at Winterbottom's" near the end of The Hamlet (388).

Unlike the upper-class boy narrators of Faulkner's previous fictions, the unnamed eight-year-old who narrates the three 'Grier' stories in the early 1940s - "Two Soldiers," "Shingles for the Lord" and "Shall Not Perish" - narrates from within the class of impoverished farmers who subsist on the poor land around Frenchman's Bend. His concerns are closely tied to his family - mother, father and brother Pete - but in the first and last of the stories Faulkner also uses him to represent his caste in a new context, the second World War.

This Albert appears in The Mansion. He is the member of Goodyhay's irregular congregation who drives the truck carrying construction materials for the church they are trying to build - and who tries to explain to Mink what unites the Goodyhay's flock across racial and other boundaries.

This Alice cooks for Miss Ballenbaugh in The Reivers, and very well too: after eating her food, Lucius "knows why the hunters and fishermen come back" to stay at Ballenbaugh's inn (76). Unmarried, she says she "aint studying no husband" (75).

In "Smoke" Anselm Junior is one of the twin sons of Anselm Holland. He seems to have inherited his father's violent misanthropy along with his name, although he "was said to have been the mother’s favorite" (4). He is the first of the twins to break with their father, moving "back into the hills" of Yoknapatawpha (5). He is "a dark, silent, aquiline-faced man" whom "both neighbors and strangers let severely alone" (6).

In "Smoke," Virginius Holland is a son of Anselm (Senior) and twin brother of Anselm (Junior). The Holland brothers share "dark, identical, aquiline faces" (15), but have different temperaments. Virginius, as the twin who probably takes after his mother, tries to mediate between his brother and their father. No one has ever witnessed Virginius lose his temper. Nonetheless, even Virginius is forced by his father, eventually, to vacate the Mardis-Holland home. Hereafter, Virginius lives with his cousin Granby Dodge, whose mortgages he rather naively pays off.

In The Mansion, Mr. Holland is the President of the Bank of Jefferson, the rival of the bank founded by Bayard Sartoris. Holland creates a scholarship in honor of his "only son," who died fighting in World War II (361).

The number of children born on the Armstid farm in Frenchman's Bend is either four or five. A character in "Lizards in Jamshyd's Courtyard" refers to them as "them chaps" (138), but at least one is a daughter: in "Spotted Horses," Ina May, the only one ever named, is twelve, and "big enough to take care of the little ones" while their mother is at Mrs. Littlejohn's nursing their father (178). Though unnamed, she plays the same role in The Hamlet. In Light in August there are five children, all born "in six years," and now "raised to man- and womanhood" (15).

One of Ben Quick's grandchildren is mentioned in The Hamlet, although not identified as a boy or a girl. Ben has a son named Isham, but whether he is the father of this child is also not said.

There are several Quicks living in Frenchman's Bend - Faulkner scholars don't agree on how many. To Brooks, Solon and Lon Quick are one character. Dasher and Kirk, on the other hand, separate them into two characters, which is what we also do in our data. This entry is for Solon, who appears in three Yoknapatawpha fictions as one of the farmers in the Bend. He is a major character in the comic "Shingles for the Lord," where he and Res Grier try to out-smart each other in a dog-and-work swapping transaction.

Theron Quick, who appears in The Hamlet as one of the suitors for Eula Varner's hand, could be Lon Quick's son, who appears elsewhere in the novel and has a separate entry in our database. He is among the suitors who ambush McCarron, but ends up being beaten unconscious by Eula, who defends McCarron with her father's buggy whip. He is also one of the two Frenchman's Bend suitors who leave the area "suddenly overnight" once it is discovered that Eula is pregnant - though Ratliff believes both of these young men were "just wishing they had" (140).

Colonel Sartoris' killing of two Northerners during Reconstruction is told four times in the fictions. The first time, in Flags in the Dust, Will Falls refers to them as "them two cyarpet-baggers" (23). They are given names in Light in August, where the same event is retold from Joanna Burden's perspective. The oldest of these men is her grandfather, Calvin Burden I; he lost one of his arms fighting against slavery as "a member of a troop of partisan guerilla horse" in 1861 (244).

In Light in August Evangeline Burden is the first wife of Calvin Burden I, and the mother of their four children. She is also the daughter of a St. Louis, Missouri, family of Huguenot descent, who came west "from Carolina" - the location so many of the leading white families in Yoknapatawpha migrate from (241).

In Light in August the first Nathaniel Burrington stands at the head of the ancestral line that reaches an end with Joanna Burden. He is a Unitarian minister in New England who fathers ten children, the youngest of whom is Calvin, who changes his last name from Burrington to Burden.

She is one of three daughters of Calvin Burden I and Evangeline in Light in August. "Beck" is presumably short for Rebecca. Unlike their older brother Nathaniel, who is dark like their mother, all three daughters have blue eyes.

She is one of three daughters of Calvin Burden I and Evangeline in Light in August. Unlike their older brother Nathaniel, who is dark like their mother, all three daughters have blue eyes.

In Light in August Joanna Burden's mother is Nathaniel Burden's second wife, but compared to all Joanna tells Joe Christmas about Juana, Burden's first wife after after whom she is named, Joanna says very little about her own mother, not even her name. All we know about her is that she moves to Jefferson from New Hampshire after Nathaniel writes his cousin there that he is seeking a wife who is "a good housekeeper and . . . at least thirtyfive years old" (250).

In The Hamlet Mrs. Freeman watches as Eck and Wall Street try to catch their horse. Eck and the boy try to stop the horse by tripping it. "She said that when it hit that rope, it looked just like one of these here great big Christmas pinwheels" (365).

In The Hamlet Odom Bookwright mentions but does not name his wife when he tells Ratliff that she hasn't spoken of "anybody's new sewing machine in almost a year" (76).

Never given a first name in "Tomorrow," this "country girl of seventeen" (90) falls for Buck Thorpe's swagger. Her father, referred to only as "Bookwright," apparently discover her during "the inevitable elopement at midnight" and shoots Buck (90). Her subsequent fate is not mentioned.

The man named "Charley" in The Reivers (146) is described by Lucius as "a switchman, a railroad man anyway," in "greasy overalls" (141). He helps load the horse into the boxcar.

The children of Frenchman's Bend farmer Vernon Tull and his wife are all girls, but there is no consensus among the fictions about how many daughters they have. In the earliest representation of the Tull family, As I Lay Dying, there are two, named Eula and Kate. In "Spotted Horses" there are three - none named. In The Hamlet, there are four, again not named; though one of these girls is referred to as the "biggest" when all four appear at the Snopes trial, they are described as a unit when they "turn their heads as one head" (357).

In As I Lay Dying Kate is one of Vernon and Cora Tull's two daughters. The way she appears in her parents' narrative sections suggests that she is clear-eyed if not angry and cynical about the place that she occupies as a poor woman. She calls out the woman who changed her mind about buying her mother's cakes as one of "those rich town ladies" (7) and even gets ahead of the plot of the novel when she predicts that Anse will "get another [wife] before cotton-picking" (34). She may also be attracted to Jewel Bundren.

The man who is referred to simply as "the coroner" in Sanctuary man may also be the local undertaker, but all one can say for certain is that he "sits over" Tommy's body as it lays in the funeral parlor trying unsuccessfully to learn the corpse's last name (113).

The antebellum "sheriff of the county" who leads the "posse" that follows and then arrests Sutpen on suspicion of having committed some kind of crime (34, 35) in Absalom! is probably not Major de Spain, who is the county sheriff in the years immediately following the Civil War.

The county sheriff who appears in Sanctuary is "a fat man, with a broad, dull face"; he arrests Lee Goodwin in the first half of the novel, and then, just before Lee is lynched, expresses his hope that the crowd outside the jail "wont do anything" (293). (Unnamed county sheriffs appear in fifteen different Yoknapatawpha fictions.

The county sheriff who oversees the assessment and payment of property taxes on the Mardis-Holland property never appears directly in "Smoke." (Unnamed county sheriffs appear in fifteen different Yoknapatawpha fictions. Obviously in some of these cases - at least when the stories are set at more or less the same historical moment - Faulkner may be thinking of the same unnamed character, or one of the half dozen "Sheriff Hampton"s who also appear in the fictions, but from the texts themselves there is no way to establish that.)

While the sheriff of Yoknapatawpha never appears in person in "Knight's Gambit," Robert Markey mentions him when he tells Gavin Stevens that "your sheriff will have to send someone" to help take Max Harriss into custody (232). Later Stevens mentions a different officer of the law when he instructs his nephew to send a message to the Memphis police that includes this phrase: "use police per request Jefferson chief if necessary” (214). While the county sheriff is a familiar character in the Yoknapatawpha fictions, there is no other mention in them of a "chief" of police.

At the end of "Hand upon the Waters" the "sheriff of the county" visits Stevens to wrap up the details of Stevens' unofficial investigation. He tries to get Stevens to confirm that Joe murdered Boyd Ballenbaugh. Stevens does not take the bait. (Unnamed county sheriffs appear in fifteen different Yoknapatawpha fictions.

In "Uncle Willy" the sheriff, the county's chief law enforcement officer, locks Willy's drugstore after the clerk has stolen most of its stock and disappeared. (Unnamed county sheriffs appear in fifteen different Yoknapatawpha fictions. Obviously in some of these cases - at least when the stories are set at more or less the same historical moment - Faulkner may be thinking of the same unnamed character, or one of the half dozen "Sheriff Hampton"s who also appear in the fictions, but from the texts themselves there is no way to establish that.)

Although Addie Bundren only appears in As I Lay Dying, she is one of the most memorable women characters in the Yoknapatawpha fictions, and in her impact on her children both before and after her death a great example of the role 'absence' plays in Faulkner's world. A former school teacher who came to Frenchman's Bend from Jefferson, Addie is the matriarch of the Bundren family who is lying on her death bed when the narrative begins. Her spiteful wish to be buried in Jefferson initiates and drives the journey at the center of the novel.

In "Uncle Willy" the man who takes Darl Bundren in handcuffs to the mental hospital is described as "a fat deputy sheriff that was smoking a cigar" (228); he did not appear in Faulkner's original account of this event, at the end of the novel As I Lay Dying (1930). (As is also the case with county sheriffs, there are many unnamed deputy sheriffs in the Yoknapatawpha fictions. It's possible that Faulkner is imagining at least some of these deputies as recurring, especially when the stories are set at more or less the same historical moment.

This is one of the two deputies mentioned in "Monk." This one is the officer who arrests Monk in the gas station. He may or may not be the same one who later transports him to the state penitentiary by train. (As is also the case with county sheriffs, there are many unnamed deputy sheriffs in the Yoknapatawpha fictions. It's possible that Faulkner is imagining at least some of these deputies as recurring, especially when the stories are set at more or less the same historical moment.

In "Pantaloon in Black" and again in Go Down, Moses, the wife of the deputy who narrates much of the last section of the story is described as "a stout woman, handsome once, graying now and with a neck definitely too short, who looked not harried at all but choleric" (252, 147). She is impatient with her husband, and preoccupied with her own concerns; her rapid movements between kitchen and dining room suggest her lack of interest in her husband's account of a black man's lynching.

This is the first of the two deputy sheriffs who appear in The Mansion; he escorts Mink to Parchman Penitentiary. (As is also the case with county sheriffs, there are many unnamed deputy sheriffs in the Yoknapatawpha fictions. It's possible that Faulkner is imagining at least some of these deputies as recurring, especially when the stories are set at more or less the same historical moment. However, there is no way to be sure of that, so it is more accurate to represent each of these deputies as a separate character.)

In "The Hound" there is a character referred to as "the second deputy" in the group of officers who arrest Mink Snopes (162). He rides in the front seat of the sheriff's "battered Ford" car with "the driver," a man named Joe (163). (Joe is presumably the story's 'first' deputy.)

In "Error in Chemistry," this unnamed deputy accompanies the sheriff to investigate the initial call from Joel Flint about his wife's death. He may or may not be the same as one of the named deputies in the story.

In The Town this deputy brings a suitcase to Montgomery Ward Snopes' studio, so Sheriff Hampton can lock up Snopes' "album" (174) of ""French postcards" (171). (As is also the case with county sheriffs, there are many unnamed deputy sheriffs in the Yoknapatawpha fictions. It's possible that Faulkner is imagining at least some of these deputies as recurring, especially when the stories are set at more or less the same historical moment. However, there is no way to be sure of that, so it is more accurate to represent each of these deputies as a separate character.)

The doctor who works at Hoke's sawmill appears anonymously in "Lion" and by name, as Doctor Crawford, in Go Down, Moses. He's not a veterinarian, but when in the short story Boon shows up "just before daylight," and "drags him out of bed like a sack of meal," he goes to the hunting camp and works on the wounded Lion (196). In "Lion" he also treats Boon, and in the novel treats both Boon and Sam.

There are over a dozen Jefferson physicians in the fictions, but the doctor in the story "Uncle Willy" is invented by Willy as a way to get his rich sister in Texas to buy him a car. According to Willy's letter to her, this doctor prescribes a car as a way to save Willy from having "to walk back and forth to the store" in his fragile health (235). According to the narrator, Willy wants the car in order to get to the moonshine stills in the hills outside Jefferson and to the brothels in Memphis.

This is the doctor in The Hamlet who inspects Mink Snopes after his suicide attempt. (This very minor character is probably also the same "doctor" as the one who examines Cotton in the story "The Hound," but since Faulkner has changed 'Cotton' to 'Mink' when he revised that story for inclusion in the novel, it seems appropriate to enter this doctor as a different character too.)

Along with the similarly vague group of "ministers" (123), this group of "the doctors" in town visit Emily Grierson's house to persuade her to relinquish her father's corpse (124).

The second of the two unnamed doctors in Sanctuary is the Florida doctor whom Popeye's mother consults about her sickly child; he tells her to "feed him eggs cooked in olive oil" (305). (It is possible that Faulkner is making a strange and subversive reference to the cartoon characters Popeye and Olive Oyl; both these E. C. Segar characters had appeared in newspapers at least two years before Sanctuary was published.)

In "A Name for the City" and again in Requiem for a Nun "Doctor Peabody" is one of the "new faces" that arrive in Yoknapatawpha after the first group of pioneers and becomes "old Doctor Habersham's successor" as the community's physician (206). He is presumably an ancestor of the Doctor Peabody who in other fictions takes care of Yoknapatawpha's sick and wounded until well into the twentieth century, but neither text ever specifies the relationship between the two men. This earlier Peabody provides laudanum to add to the whiskey given to the militia for their celebration.

Maw Grier's brother Marsh fought and was wounded in World War I. For Mrs. Grier in "Two Soldiers," her brother's decision to enlist in 1917 gives her a way to appreciate why in 1941 her oldest son Pete has "got to go" to the another war. For Mr. Grier, however, Marsh's "actual wound on the battlefields of France" means the family has already contributed "enough" to U.S. war efforts (85). Mrs. Grier mentions her brother again in "Shall Not Perish."

In "Shall Not Perish," when Mrs. Grier consoles Major de Spain for the loss of his son in the early days of World War Two, she mentions her own grandfather who fought in the Civil War, adding that "I reckon his mother didn't know why [he had to enlist] either, but I reckon he did" (109).