Character Keys

This is the mother whom Judge Allison meets in "Beyond," a young woman who wears "a plain, brushed, worn cape" with "a plain, bright, pleasant face" and "a pleasant, tranquil voice" (791). When she first appears she is "carrying a child" (791), but she does not provide any details about her previous existence. She treats her son "with an air fond and unconcerned," soothing him when he fusses and doling out toys to him (793). Ingersoll tells the judge to "Follow her" (791).

Intruder in the Dust includes the story of the Frenchman's Bend man who has been making moonshine whiskey "for years bothering nobody," until his wife and another local woman start feuding (227).

The "regular customers" for Lucas Beauchamp's moonshine - whom he thinks of in "A Point of Law" as his "established clientele" (213-14) and in Go Down, Moses as his "established trade" (35) - are not described in either text. It can safely be assumed from the other fictions that all are male. And given the way moonshine is bought and consumed throughout Faulkner's fiction, it is probably safe to assume they are of both races and from various levels of Yoknapatawpha society.

One of the more exotic characters in the Yoknapatawpha fictions, this "Mohammedan" prince has a "European mistress" in Requiem for a Nun; he never appears in the novel, but is mentioned as the man who built the "hideway" in the south of France where Temple Drake and Gowan Stevens take their honeymoon (122).

In Requiem for a Nun this 20th-century "planter" is a generic figure whose fate suggests the kinds of changes that have occurred in Yoknapatawpha: where once he had slaves and then tenants to work his fields, after his "son" is drafted in the second World War it is the planter himself who does that, riding "on the seat of his tractor" (193).

in The Hamlet Will Varner is having an ongoing affair with the "middle-fortyish wife of one of his own tenants" (156).

According to the account of the development of Mississippi from wilderness to civilization in Requiem for a Nun, "the politicians" follow the "land speculators" (172). The novel's history of the place that became Jackson more specifically notes the role the legislature played in creating a new state capital after the Mississippi territory achieved statehood in 1817, though it also notes, wryly, how at various later moments "the Senate" and "the House" alternately sought to change the location (85-86).

In both "Delta Autumn" and the chapter with that title in Go Down, Moses, the texts briefly mention the Indians who once inhabited Mississippi. As the "successors" of the aboriginal inhabitants, they turned the aboriginals' raised refuges from the water into burial mounds, which suggests their inevitable historical fate: all that is left of these Indians in the present are their words as the names of "the little towns" along the river (271, 325).

After Monk is arrested, he is unable to identify his supposed victim. As the narrator of "Monk" puts it, "he named as his victim (this on suggestion, prompting) several men who where alive, and even one who was present in the J.P.'s office at the time" (42). His ignorance here provides further proof of Monk's incompetence to participate in his own defense.

In Light in August, this is 'the white minister in Santa Fe" - in other words, he's a Protestant from the U.S. rather than a Catholic priest from Mexico - whom Nathaniel Burden hears about. Nathaniel and Juana hope he will marry them, but as they arrive in Santa Fe they see "the dust of the stage" that was carrying him away (247). The fact that he had been there inspires them to live in Santa Fe "a couple more years," hoping he will return (247). He never does.

When Captain Gualdres and his new bride appear in Gavin Stevens' office to say good-bye at the end of "Knight's Gambit," Gualdres refers to the marriage ceremony that has just taken place by saying, "We just leave the padre" (238). Although it's not made explicit, it's extremely likely that Gualdres himself is a Catholic - but if this "padre" is a Catholic priest, this would be the only time in the Yoknapatawpha fictions that Faulkner mentions a local Catholic church.

The minister of the church that Sutpen's family attends in Absalom! tries to stop Sutpen from racing his carriage to church by "speaking [to him] in the name of the women of Jefferson and Yoknapatawpha County" (17). This stops Sutpen from coming to church, but the racing continues for a while. Although the novel doesn't say so, it's likely that this man is an Episcopalian minister.

Through the window of her mother's shop in "Miss Zilphia Gant" Zilphia watches her former schoolmates "fall into inevitable pairs" - i.e. begin dating - and notes that some of them end up at "the minister or the church," i.e. getting married (374). She may be thinking of an actual "minister" or using the term figuratively.

In "A Name for the City" and again in Requiem for a Nun the sergeant who commanded the militia unit that captured the outlaw gang was reported by some to have "recognized one of the bandits as a deserter from his corps" - and reportedly himself recognized by "one of the bandits" as "a former follower of his, the bandit's trade" (201, 5).

According to the narrator of "Ad Astra," two military mechanics were required to "shoehorn" the exceptionally large Comyn "into the cockpit of a Dolphin, like two chambermaids putting an emergency bolster into a case too large for it" (410). (The Sopwith Dolphin was one of the standard British fighter planes during the First World War.)

On the train to Oxford in Sanctuary are "three middle-aged women" who cannot find seats, because of the "gay rudeness" of the college students who pushed into the car ahead of them (169).

Sanctuary refers to these women at a double remove: Horace is at the Sartoris place when he tells the story of Lee Goodwin at the Old Frenchman place telling him about the "Mexican girls" he met while serving as a sergeant in the U.S. cavalry (109).

In "A Name for the City" and again in Requiem for a Nun this inhabitant of the settlement is sent to the "post-office-store" to "fetch the old Carolina lock from the latest Nashville mail-pouch" (202, 6).

In Light in August someone called the "word-of-mouth messenger" brings news of Nathaniel from Colorado to the Burdens living at that time somewhere west of St. Louis (243).

Like Gene, the bootlegger they work for in Sanctuary, the two "young men" who bring additional alcohol for the funeral are described as "soiled" (246).

In Go Down, Moses various combinations of the "gaunt, malaria-ridden" men who live in the wildest parts of the big woods (210) appear in throughout the year to look at the dog named Lion while Sam is training him. Many of them feel invested in the hunt for Old Ben, since the bear often raided their crops and attacked their livestock.

In "Gold Is Not Always" and again in Go Down, Moses, these are the "two strange white men" whom Lucas believes "came in here after dark one night three years ago and dug up twenty-two thousand dollars and got out again before anybody even seed um" (227, 78).

In Chapter 6 of The Mansion, Gavin Stevens refers to "the same old cynical manipulators" who had caused World War One and were now, in the late 1930s, about to start the Second World War: "the parasites - the hereditary proprietors, the farmers-general of the human dilemma" (178). The specific names he mentions in the passage include Benito Mussolini, "this one man" in Germany (Adolph Hitler), Huey Long in Louisiana and "our own Bilbo in Mississippi" as well as two racist and anti-Semitic organizations: the "K.K.K. and Silver Shirts" (179). V.K.

In The Sound and the Fury these two men help break up Julio's attack on Quentin, and then keep an eye on Julio during the walk to the Squire who will decide Quentin's case. They may be the marshal's assistants, or simply two bystanders who are pulled into the story by Julio's attack on and accusation against Quentin.

In The Hamlet there are always groups of men hanging around Frenchman's Bend's more public spaces, like Varner's various businesses or Mrs. Littlejohn's boarding house. Some members appear somewhat individualized, such as with the "man with the peach spray" (343) who discusses the horse auction and its consequences with a "second" and a "third" among the group at Varner's store, although each remains virtually indistinct, members of a communal group who interact with well-defined characters like Varner, Ratliff, Quick, Bookwright, Freeman and the various Snopeses.

Sanctuary refers to men in the town square several times. In Chapter 17 they are seen "drifting back toward the square after supper" (134). In Chapter 19, looking through the window of Ruby's hotel room, Horace can see "men pitching dollars back and forth between holes in the bare earth beneath and locusts and water oaks" around the courthouse at the center of the square (161).

The "clump of men" sitting in Max's restaurant the first time Christmas goes there in Light in August are described as "not farmers and not townsmen either"; with "their tilted hats and their cigarettes and their odor of barbershops," they look like they "had just got off a train," "would be gone tomorrow," and do "not have any address" (178, 174).

In The Sound and the Fury these two men sitting in front of a store talk to Quentin during his attempt to find the home of the little girl he met in the bakery.

When Tug Nightingale attacks Skeets Magowan in the barbershop in The Mansion, "it takes all the barbers and customers and loafers" to subdue him (209). As the term "loafers" here indicates, the barbershop was one of the places in Jefferson where idling males congregated.

In "Hair" these customers gossip about Hawkshaw and Susan Reed as they are shaved by Mr. Maxey and Matt.

These men are sitting on the store porch when Ab and Ratliff drive past in The Hamlet; they may have been the ones who told Ab that "Pat Stamper was in Jefferson that day" (38).

In The Mansion, the "overalled men" of Frenchman's Bend regularly gather at Varner's store, to "squat or stand all day against the front wall or inside the store itself" (29).

In "Fool about a Horse" the "other men" who have gathered at Varner's store are more small farmers from the Frenchman's Bend area (122).

The group of men at Varner's store in Light in August are there on Saturday morning to watch as the pregnant Lena Grove descends from Armstid's wagon. They are described as "squatting" and "already spitting across the heelgnawed porch" (25). They "listen quietly" as the tells her story, and are all sure she will never again see the father of the child she carries (26).

"Five men in overalls squatted against the wall of Varner's store" (156) - this is how "The Hound" describes the group whose conversation about Houston's disappearance makes Cotton increasingly uncomfortable. Their discussion suggests all five live nearby. Their "overalls" and "squatting" posture suggest they are all farmers. But the narrative gives no other details to identify them as a group, and distinguishes them from each other only as "the first," "a second," "a third" and "a fourth" (156-57). Cotton's grudge against Houston is common knowledge among them.

In The Sound and the Fury, at "a filling station" in Mottson, "they" tell Jason where the traveling show can be found (308). The novel provides no evidence about who "they" are - whether customers or attendants at the gas station, or both.

These men in "Barn Burning" sit atop or stand along the "tall rail fence" beside the horse lot next to the general store and blacksmith's shop, where they spend the Saturday afternoon unhurriedly "swapping and buying" horses (20).

Hoke's is "a sawmill and a few stores" (188), apparently populated almost entirely by men. In "Lion" and again in Go Down, Moses most of these "wear muddy boots and khaki," indicating their status as mill workers (188, 218). The next day some "people from Hoke's" (189), called "sawmill men from Hoke's" in the novel (224), show up at the hunting camp, to participate in the hunt for Old Ben. Afterwards, they also bear witness to Lion's passing.

On the fourth day of his flight in Light in August Christmas smells breakfast cooking at a farm house, but waits to approach it until he sees "the men" of the farm finish eating and "go to the field" (332).

According to Gavin Stevens, "every male under sixty who had ever taken a drink or bought a bale of cotton from her father" was considered as the possible love interest in Mrs. Harriss' past ("Knight's Gambit," 245).

In "That Will Be Fine" Georgie's mother theorizes that "most other men were prejudiced against Uncle Rodney, why she didn't know" (267).

In Flags in the Dust Dr. Brandt shares his Memphis office with at least one other medical "specialist," who is described as "large," "with a majestic, surreptitious air like a royal undertaker" (246).

This is the serviceman in Flags in the Dust whom Montgomery Ward Snopes cons into declaring him medically unfit for military service by holding "a plug of chewing tobacco beneath his left armpit" all the way from Jefferson to Memphis (167).

Only one of the prostitutes who work at Miss Reba's in The Mansion, Thelma, is given a name (84). As a group they are imagined, in Montgomery Ward Snopes' narration, "running back and forth to the bathroom in nighties and negligees or maybe not even that," and also "screaming and fighting and pulling each other's hair" (81). According to Snopes, "so many" of them "came from little Tennessee and Arkansas and Mississippi country towns and Baptist and Methodist families" (83).

In Light in August during the last year of his relationship with Joanna Joe goes "every week or so" to Memphis, "where he betrays her with other women, women bought for a price" (263).

One of the two "ladies, girls" whom Lucius sees at supper in Miss Reba's in The Reivers (106). Lucius distinguishes them by their clothes - one wears "a red dress," and the other is "in pink" - and their age: one is a "girl" and the other is "no longer a girl" (106-07). This is the younger one, who complains about having to be so quiet on Sundays.

In "Vendee" and again in the chapter with that name in The Unvanquished Bayard says that this minister is "from Memphis or somewhere," and describes him as a "big refugeeing preacher with his book already open" standing in the cemetery with a slave "holding an umbrella over him" (97, 156). Mrs. Compson and other Jefferson townspeople have asked him to officiate at Granny's funeral, presumably because of her status as both an Episcopalian and a member of the local aristocracy.

In The Mansion this is the policeman who drives Mink out of the train station in Memphis; he is "not in uniform," and much more aggressive than the policeman who drove Mink out of the park (318).

This policeman makes a fleeting appearance in Sanctuary when he shouts at Popeye as he speeds past driving Temple through Memphis to the Grotto club.