Character Keys

In "Wash" these enslaved black men laugh at Wash for remaining in Yoknapatawpha during the Civil War. They would make fun of him with the question "Why ain't you at de war, white man?" (537). "Most" of Sutpen's slaves leave to follow the Union army toward freedom after "Sherman passes through the plantation" (537).

In Absalom!, Henry's letter to his sister about enlisting with Bon in the University Grays reaches her secretly by way of "Judith's maid" (272).

When this second child is born to Sam Fathers' mother, and her husband is its father, the story called "A Justice" seems to suggest that Doom's solution to the problems of race, slavery and sexual rivalry has provided at least a form of 'justice' in the end. He is, however, born into slavery, like his parents.

Conventionally, the enslaved people in the antebellum South were divided into two categories: 'field Negroes,' who had little contact with whites other than overseers, and 'house Negroes,' who worked indoors as cooks, maids, butlers, and so on. In Absalom!, Jefferson's "house negroes" first appear accompanying the white "ladies and children" to church services, carrying the "parasols and flywhisks" that keep the sun and insects away from the whites (23).

The enslaved man in Absalom! who holds the reins of Sutpen's horse when he dismounts at the Holston House is identified simply as "the negro hostler" (34). A hostler is someone who tends to the horses of people staying at an inn or hotel.

Historically, Haitian slavery was abolished and French ownership of land forbidden by law before Sutpen was born. Absalom! represents the people who rise up against the rule of the French sugar planter so symbolically that it is impossible to know if it sees them as enslaved or not, though it's likely that in Faulkner's mind their uprising is a slave rebellion. Before the rebellion they are depicted as the unseen sound of "the drums and the chanting" at night (202), and a "blank wall of black secret faces, a wall behind which almost anything could be preparing to happen" (203).

The woman who is the mother of Sam Fathers appears in four texts, though never as exactly the same person; her character changes as Faulkner's idea of the character Sam Fathers changes. In "A Justice," Sam is the son a slave whom Doom wins on a steamboat; she is married to another slave, but forced into a sexual relationship with one of the Indians, Crawford, who is the biological father of Sam.

In Requiem for a Nun this "female slave child" sits next to Mohataha in her wagon, holding "the crusted slippers" that originally came from France (170).

According to the account of Yoknapatawpha's history in Requiem for a Nun, the first slaves were brought into the county by Louis Grenier. This enslaved "coachman" is one of the two Grenier slaves who appear in the narrative when Grenier drives his "imported carriage" into Jefferson to see the construction of the new courthouse.

Once the Sutpen family reaches the eastern part of Virginia on their journey in Absalom!, they begin seeing many enslaved people, described by the narrative as "niggers working in the fields" (182), "regiments of niggers [who] planted and raised" crops (184), "still more niggers [who] plant flowers and trim grass" on the grounds of the big plantation houses (185). The narrative describes these slaves as wearing "better clothes" than the Southern poor white population, which includes the Sutpens (186).

In Absalom! the "stableboy" who drives Ellen and her children to church "instead of the wild negro" who originally took them is not one of the twenty that Sutpen brought with him from the Caribbean, but a slave "that he had bought" locally (17).

In "A Name for the City" and again in Requiem for a Nun the enslaved wife of the "waiter-groom-hostler" at Holston's tavern is the establishment's cook (208, 14); although a good bit of the story takes place in the tavern's kitchen, she herself is never seen.

According to the account of Yoknapatawpha's history in Requiem for a Nun, the first slaves were brought into the county by Louis Grenier. This "slave coachman" is one of the two Grenier slaves who appear in the narrative when Grenier drives into Jefferson to see the construction of the new courthouse. The other settlers expect the two slaves to help with that work, but Compson invokes "the rigid protocol of bondage" - that is, the unwritten rules that govern master-slave relations - and says no "stable-servant" like the coachman can be ordered to do "manual labor" (27).

In Absalom! Mr. Compson describes how on Christmas Eve, "the nigger children, with branches of holly and mistletoe for excuses, [lurked] about the rear of the big house to shout 'Christmas gift' at the white people" (84). Traditionally slaves were given holiday at Christmas, and the tradition of being rewarded for being first to wish someone a merry Christmas, while not exclusively southern or interracial, was part of the festivities.

One of the most important characters in Absalom, Absalom! is referred to only by the unfortunate label of "monkey nigger" (186, 188, 189) or "the monkey-dressed nigger butler" (187). This is the slave of the planter for whom Sutpen's father works, and who, when Sutpen comes to the front door of the plantation's big house with a message, "keeps the door barred with his body" (187) and tells the white boy "never to come to the front door again but to go around to the back" (188).

This unnamed "Negro boy" is a slave owned by Doctor Holston in "My Grandmother Millard" (675).

This "body-servant" is a slave belonging to the Old Frenchman, and is described in The Hamlet as accompanying his master to the Civil War (373).

While he lies outside his big house "in a barrel stave hammock . . . with his shoes off," the owner of the plantation on which Sutpen's father works in Absalom! is waited on by a slave "who wore every day better clothes than [Sutpen] or his father and sisters had ever owned"; this slave's task is "to fan" the owner "and bring him drinks" (184). It is possible that this is the same man as the enslaved "butler" who tells Sutpen later to go around to the mansion's back door (187), but that is not indicated in the text.

In "All the Dead Pilots," these soldiers - "the enlisted element of the whole sector of French and British troops" - are fascinated with the rivalry between Sartoris and Spoomer, two officers who find 'Toinette in a bar "where officers did not go" (516). They discuss it frequently and even make bets it.

In Flags in the Dust this is the man for whom Joan Heppleton leaves her husband and goes to Australia. While living there she assumed his name, but since she married again later that name might not have been Heppleton. The narrator sums his character up by saying "no Englishman out of his native island has any honor about women" (321); at some point the pair went to India, where he deserted Joan in Bombay.

"Lizards in Jamshyd's Courtyard" and also The Hamlet refer briefly to the "imported English architect" who designed the "huge house" and the "formal grounds and gardens" at the Old Frenchman's place (136). In Flags in the Dust the Benbow house in Jefferson was also designed in the 1840s by an English architect, though not necessarily the same one.

In Light in August Sheriff Kennedy's office apparently includes other deputies or employees besides Buford, though their identities never come into focus. When Bryon goes to that office to talk to Kennedy, "they" tell him that Kennedy is busy with "the special Grand Jury" (415). When Mrs. Hines goes there, the Sheriff sends her to see Christmas at the jail "with a deputy" (447). When Grimm goes there, "they" tell him that the sheriff is at home, eating; in this third case, "they" even have lines of dialogue, including a joke about Kennedy's weight (454).

Homer Barron hangs out with these younger men of the local Elks' Club in "A Rose for Emily." (The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks is a civic group that was originally founded in New York in 1868.)

In Light in August the "elders" at Hightower's seminary, "the high and sanctified men who are the destiny of the church" (478), are the men whom he has to convince to send him to Jefferson. They are also called "the hierarchate of the Church" (482).

In the hallway of the Negro brothel that Clarence takes them to, Virgil and Fonzo see "a drunk white man in greasy overalls" arguing with two Negro men (198). His overalls identify him as lower class, and tell us something about the socio-economic standing of the brothel's clientele, but no other details, about the man or the argument, are given in Sanctuary.

Walking through the Square in The Mansion, Mink sees the "drummers sitting in leather chairs along the sidewalk" in front of the Holston House (37). A 'drummer' was a traveling salesman.

"Drummers," as traveling salesmen were called, appear three times in Sanctuary sitting in chairs or standing or getting into a "bus" along the curb outside the hotel in Jefferson, first when Horace gets a room for Ruby, again the morning after he speaks with Temple, and then again when he waits in the hotel for a train to take him back to Kinston (124).

In The Sound and the Fury Jason rages against the "every dam drummer" that comes to Jefferson, all of whom he imagines have sexual relations with his niece, Quentin (239). "Drummer" is an archaic term for a salesman who travels from town to town. We know that Miss Quentin is sexually active, though these specific partners are products of Jason's imagination.

In The Town this drummer is imagined by Jefferson observers to have oversold some commodity to Wallstreet Panic Snopes, thus making it necessary for him to borrow money.

In "Smoke" this "drummer" - a familiar term for traveling salesman when the story was written - supplies the drug store with the unpopular "city cigarettes" that will play such a major role in solving the crime (28).

In The Sound and the Fury this drummer appears at the hardware store where Jason works, and the two men discuss cotton. Jason invites him to go to the drugstore to get "a dope" (191). ( "Drummer" is an outdated term for a traveling salesman; "dope" is an outdated term for a Coca-Cola.) Because he thinks Jason believes him to be a Jew, he tells Jason that "my folks have some French blood" (191).

The drugstore in Jefferson appears in many of the Yoknapatawpha fictions, but it is not identified with an owner with any consistency. So in As I Lay Dying the pharmacist who is at lunch when Dewey Dell walks into the drugstore, the employer whom MacGowan refers to as "the old man" and "the old bastard," has to remain unnamed (242, 247). He clearly does not know about MacGowan's unethical behavior.

In Flags in the Dust the "youthful clerk" in the drug store who re-wraps the package that Joan dropped in the street also "stares at her boldly" (319).

Although never named, the drug store clerk in "Uncle Willy" plays a large role in the plot. He arrives in Jefferson "about six months" before Reverend Schultz and Mrs. Merridew hire him to manage the drugstore while Willy undergoes drug treatment in Memphis (232). No one in Jefferson "knows anything about him," but he arrives in town with "letters to the church," which is apparently the basis on which he is hired (232). He completely transforms the store - making it attractive to the "town trade" that had previously shunned it (233).

In The Mansion the member of Goodyhay's sect who gives Mink a ride into Memphis (and whom the narrative only refers to as "the driver," and does not describe at all, 312) knows his way around the city.

After Fraser dies in "Monk," this unnamed man driving "the truck or the car" sees Monk and says, "All right, Monk. Jump in" (45). He takes Monk to a gas station two or three miles from Jefferson.

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).

While waiting on Dr. Schofield to amputate his leg in "The Tall Men," Buddy McCallum recalls another doctor and a more unbearable wait during the First World War. He remembers, "It took a long time for the doctor to get around to all of us, and by that time it was hurting bad." Presumably American and most certainly overworked, this doctor patiently treats the "heap" of injured soldiers "racked up along a bank outside a field dressing station" (51).

"The doctor" in Absalom! treats Charles E. S-V. Bon after the fight at "the negro ball" (164). (In the various fictions there are three named Jefferson doctors who appear more than once - Habersham in the early life of the town; Peabody and Alford in the 20th century - but there are also over a dozen doctors who are never named.

The Jefferson doctor who appears twice in Light in August is not named. Some years before the events of the story, he arrives at a cabin where Gail Hightower has just delivered a stillborn Negro baby. In the novel's present he is also the doctor whom Byron Bunch contacts when Lena goes into labor in a different cabin; again he arrives too late, but this time after Hightower has successfully delivered the baby.

The "doctor" who examines Cotton after he is brought to jail in "The Hound" is not named, or individualized in any way (163). (In the various fictions there are three named Jefferson doctors who appear more than once - Habersham in the early life of the town; Peabody and Alford in the 20th century - but there are also over a dozen doctors who are never named.

The first of the two unnamed doctors who appear in Sanctuary is the Jefferson physician who attends Ruby's child; after her child has a bad night in the hotel, Ruby tells Horace that "I finally got the doctor" (135). The doctor who appears in all three previous Yoknapatawpha novels is named Peabody, described as the fattest man in Yoknapatawpha County, but this doctor is someone else, "a young man with a small black bag" whom Horace obviously has never seen before (135).

This is the doctor whom Lucas Beauchamp goes to get when Zack Edmonds’s wife has trouble in labor in Go Down, Moses; he arrives too late to prevent her death. (In the various fictions there are three named Jefferson doctors who appear more than once - Habersham in the early life of the town; Peabody and Alford in the 20th century - but there are also over a dozen doctors who are never named.

This is the Jefferson doctor in "Dry September" whom Minnie Cooper's friends send for when she suffers a nervous breakdown. He is "hard to locate" (181). (In the various fictions there are three named Jefferson doctors who appear more than once - Habersham in the early life of the town; Peabody and Alford in the 20th century - but there are also over a dozen doctors who are never named.

In "Appendix Compson," this district Chancellor annually reviews the financial reports submitted by Jason Compson as the "guardian and trustee" of his niece (342).

In an odd twist, after Mink's conviction in The Mansion, this District Attorney who prosecuted Mink meets with Mink's lawyer and the judge who oversaw the trial to try to figure out what kind of sentence to give him, for Mink's sake and the public's.

In "Tomorrow," the District Attorney of Yoknapatawpha apparently feels so certain that Bookwright will be found not guilty that he "conducts the case through an assistant" (91), and does not otherwise appear in the story.

In a passage added to the "Retreat" chapter of The Unvanquished, Bayard describes these poor whites as "the people whom the niggers called 'white trash'" - though he himself refers to them several times as "white trash" too (48-49). Their low status is defined in part by the fact that they "owned no slaves" (49). They farm "little patches of poor hill land" near the McCaslin place and in some cases "live worse than the slaves on the big plantation" (49). According to Bayard, they "look on Uncle Buck and Buddy like Deity Himself" (49).

All we know about this character in Sanctuary is that, when Horace asks the post office clerk at the University if he knows where Temple has gone, the clerk in reply asks him if he is "another detective" - suggesting that a detective of some kind has already been looking for Judge Temple's missing daughter (171). We don't even know if he is a private detective, or a policeman.