Character Keys

In As I Lay Dying, both Cash and Darl believe that sex is the reason Jewel sneaks out every night, and each tries to imagine whom he is "rutting" with (131). Cash believes she must be "a married woman somewhere," because of the sexual "daring and staying power" she seems capable of (132). (It turns out, as Cash says later, that "it aint a woman" at all, 133.)

In "That Evening Sun" the marshal, Jefferson's main police officer, arrests Nancy and accompanies her to jail. On the way, he stops - but does not arrest - Mr. Stovall after he kicks Nancy in the mouth, knocking out her teeth.

In Requiem for a Nun, Jailor Tubbs refers to the man whose job it is to arrest "drunks and gamblers" only as "the Marshal" (209). In Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha fictions the "marshal" is a peace officer whose jurisdiction is the town of Jefferson.

Uncle Billy's Frenchman's Bend Masons are in charge of Eck Snopes' funeral in The Town. (The first American chapters of the social order known as Freemasonry were organized in Pennsylvania in the early 18th century. Many of the Founders of the Revolutionary era were Freemasons, which is why the U.S. dollar includes masonic symbolism. Not long after the Revolution ended there were 'lodges' in all the states, but I confess it's surprising to think that such a small and impoverished place as Frenchman's Bend had its own chapter.)

In Light in August the matron of the (all-white) orphanage in Memphis is "past fifty, flabby faced, with weak, kind, frustrated eyes" (133). When she hears that Joe Christmas is being called a Negro, she decides to place him with a family as quickly as possible. She seems to have the child's interests at heart, both in making sure Christmas doesn't have to go to the "colored" orphanage, and in keeping the rumors about his race from McEachern, the white man who adopts him.

The mayor of Jefferson is mentioned in "Uncle Willy," though not named or seen, when the women who live in Willy's neighborhood march with their children toward his office to complain about the woman whom Willy has married and brought home from a brothel in Memphis.

When the men chasing Christmas in Light in August are led by the dogs to the Negro woman "wearing a pair of man's shoes," one "member of the posse" identifies the shoes as the fugitive's (329).

In "By the People" and again in The Mansion, during his youth in Frenchman's Bend Clarence Snopes is the leader of a "gang of cousins and toadies" (89, 328) who terrorize the community around Frenchman's Bend. They fought and drank and beat Negroes and terrified young girls" (89) - slightly revised to "fought and drank and gambled and beat up Negroes and terrified women and young girls" in the novel (328).

In Light in August the old men and women, pillars of the church, are among the first to "astonished and dubious" about Reverend Hightower's obsessions (61). Others increasingly view his behavior and preaching with suspicion, and gossip about him and his wife - though they also raise funds to pay for Mrs. Hightower's treatment in a sanatorium and cook meals for him during her absence.

As part of the account in Go Down, Moses of Reconstruction in the South, these white men "armed in sheets and masks" who terrorize freed blacks are described (277). The details of the description suggests the Ku Klux Klan, especially "formalized regalia of hooded sheets" and "fiery christian symbols" (276), but this group is never given a label. And astonishingly, the narrator suggests that its original founders were the descendants of the carpetbaggers from the North, lynching "the race their ancestors had come to save" (276).

In Intruder in the Dust the white people who crowd Jefferson's main streets in anticipation of the arrival of a lynch mob from Beat Four are from everywhere in Yoknapatawpha except Beat Four. It begins to form on Sunday morning, with a small group made up of young men from town.

After Hightower refuses to resign from his pulpit in the Presbyterian church in Light in August, members of other churches in Jefferson come to see him "out of curiosity for a time" (69). The other main denominations in Jefferson are Episcopalian, Baptist and Methodist.

In "Wash" and again in Absalom! this is the group of armed white men who ride out with the sheriff to the shack where Wash lives to arrest him. They arrive as night falls, so Wash sees them mainly as moving shadows, but in his mind, at least, they are felt to be "men of Sutpen's own kind," the aristocratic leaders of the plantation South, the "arrogant and proud on the fine horses across the fine plantations" whom he had once looked up to, but who now seem to him not just "symbols of admiration and hope," but also "instruments of despair and grief" (547, 232).

In "An Error in Chemistry" the sheriff sends "Ben Berry and some others" to Joel Flint's house in case the escaped Joel Flint returns there (122). These "others" are not described in any way, though it seems as if they are not members of the sheriff's office, which is why we identify them as a kind of 'posse.'

Members of the irregular Confederate unit that John Sartoris organizes in Mississippi after his original regiment votes him out of command after a year appear first in the first Yoknapatawpha fiction, Flags in the Dust, in the second story about the Civil War that Will Falls rehearses for the Colonel's son Bayard. In that novel Bayard calls them "pretty good men," but adds that they "quit fighting and went home too often" (229); Jenny calls them "a bunch of red-neck brigands" (238).

The American Legion was created in 1919 as an organization for veterans of World War I. Historically it has worked to secure veterans' rights. In The Mansion it is seen both positively and critically. Gavin is thinking of it when he talks about how "the Veterans' clubs and legions" provide "refuge" for the men who fought in the First World War only to find themselves feeling alienated, "betrayed and dispossessed" when they returned to the U.S. (201).

In The Mansion, when the U.S. enters the First World War Mack Lendon organizes a company of soldiers "to be known as the Sartoris Rifles in honor of the original Colonel Sartoris" (204). The only two members of the unit who are named are Lendon himself and Tug Nightingale. The company ships out "to Texas for training" (207).

These are the "liquor dealers," "grocers and coal merchants," "plumbers," "newspaper boy" and other tradesman and laborers with whom Mr. Binford negotiates in The Reivers as part of his responsibilities as the man of the house that Miss Reba runs (111).

The Memphis "Commissioner" in The Mansion is an acquaintance of Gavin Stevens's Harvard friend (426). Gavin's friend enlists his help in the attempt to locate Mink Snopes. Presumably he's the Commissioner of Police, though that isn't made explicit.

In The Hamlet this doctor operates upon V.K. Ratliff, cutting the "right thing out whether by accident or design" (80).

The hypothetical "expert that can tell about bullets" (71) whom Chick imagines in Intruder in the Dust; "somebody from the Memphis police" (188) that Chick assumes Sheriff Hampton will have to call in. Though in a different state, Memphis is the closest large city to Yoknapatawpha.

The first time this lawyer is mentioned in Sanctuary is in an antisemitic rant by Clarence Snopes about "a Memphis jew lawyer" (266). He appears in person on the day Temple testifies in court; he sits "picking his teeth" at the prosecution's table. There Horace refers to him as "a Jew lawyer from Memphis" (282). The narrative's description is less overtly hostile, but phrases like "his skull was capped closely by tight-curled black hair" and "he had a long, pale nose" (281) do emphasize his ethnicity. His connection with Memphis suggests he represents Popeye's interests.

These are the "street- and assessment commissioners" with whom Mr. Binford negotiates and the policemen he pays off as part of his responsibilities as the man of Miss Reba's house in The Reivers (111).

In Light in August the police in Memphis arrest the drunken man in Mrs. Hightower's hotel room after her death and also find the pieces of paper on which she wrote and tore up her "rightful name" (67).

In The Mansion Miss Reba and her pimp have to "pay off" the "cops" in order to stay in business (80, 81).

In The Mansion this police officer makes Mink move from the bench at Court Square, but also gives him fifty cents so he can "find a bed" (316).

On their way through the streets to the railroad depot the adventurers in The Reivers are questioned by a policeman who "knew Miss Corrie" and "apparently" Sam Caldwell as well (138). He lets them proceed without incident.

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 older one," whom Lucius feels a kind of pity for: "There was something wrong about her . . . She was alone. . . . she shouldn't have had to be here, alone, to have to go through this" (107). Exactly what the 11-year-old Lucius means by "this" is not specified, but Mr.

Sanctuary spends a lot of time in Miss Reba's, but the women who work their as prostitutes remain largely offstage. At various times Temple, Fonzo and Virgil hear their laughter or the rustle of their clothes. In Chapter 21 they appear as "a plump blonde woman" (192), a woman "in a kimono" leaving "a trail of scent" (194) and a "blonde woman in a red dress" (198).

These are the "white women" in the "houses in Memphis" that, as a young man in The Mansion, Mink discovers are available, "if he had the money" (317).

The Reivers refers to other prostitutes at Miss Reba's, besides Corrie and the two "ladies" whom Lucius meets at supper (106). Lucius can hear them meeting customers in the parlor on Saturday night. When the adult Lucius who is telling the story calls them "ladies" and "nymphs" (130), he is being pleasantly (rather than judgmentally) ironic.

On the "Sunday morning" after Mrs. Hightower's scandalous death in Light in August, Hightower's church is beset by swarm of "Memphis reporters taking pictures" (67). They even "follow him into the church" (68).

The waitress at the counter in the Memphis station tells Boon "he couldn't drink [whiskey] there" (188). When this episode recurs in Go Down, Moses, the waitress is replaced by a "negro waiter," and it's a woman "manager" who speaks the line originally given to the waitress (222).

These are the unnamed men in "An Error in Chemistry" who came to the narrator's grandfather's house to socialize and drink cold toddies.

In The Sound and the Fury these two men carry the rowing "shell" that Gerald Bland uses from the boat house to the water (90).

This entry represents the men in The Town - described simply as "a few more men" - who watch the fight that Buddy McCallum arranges between his son Anse and Matt Levitt (207). Since Matt is from town and Anse from the country, these men could be from anywhere in Yoknapatawpha.

In The Unvanquished these men are originally depicted as the "row of feet" that Bayard sees propped on the porch railing when he arrives at Holston House to confront Redmond (245). Afterward, when Bayard leaves the hotel, this same group "raises their hats" out of respect for him (251).

At the livery stable where Rafe takes Bayard in Flags in the Dust are a number of "onlookers" (129) sitting "on top of the gate" or "leaning with crossed arms upon it" (126). Presumably they are admiring the stallion in the lot, though when its runs away with Bayard by crashing right through the gate they "hurl themselves to safety" (129).

While eating lunch in Jefferson, in The Hamlet, Ratliff tells these "three or four listeners" (75) about the operation he underwent in a Memphis hospital.

At almost any time of day, apparently, the porch in front of Varner's store serves as the gathering place for groups of men from nearby farms in "Lizards in Jamshyd's Courtyard." While sitting on the porch they discuss local events and characters.

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).

Varner's store is a gathering place for the people who live in Frenchman's Bend. In The Town there are two references to the groups of men, specifically, who are found there. Gavin's hypothetical account of Mrs. Varner's visit to the store refers to the "few loungers" whom she chases out - these men "should have been in the field," since it's "planting time" (307). Later "the men squatting along the gallery" (388) - whom Ratliff also describes as a "few neighbors" (384) - rush off to rescue Clarence Snopes from Byron's children (388).

In "Miss Zilphia Gant," the other men who frequent the tavern where Gant stays on his trips to Memphis are described as "rough, unshaven, overalled men" who "eat coarse food and drink pale, virulent corn whiskey and sleep in their muddy clothes and boots on the puncheon floor before the log fire" (368). Some of them, at least, are probably mule or horse traders like Gant - they arrive in "other caravans similar to his" - but others make their living in "more equivocal" but unspecified ways (368).

As Mink is being driven to jail in The Hamlet, they pass the Whiteleaf store. When the men who had been "squatting and spitting on the gallery stand suddenly up," the deputy sheriff remarks that "There are folks here too that act willing to believe their name is Houston for maybe ten or fifteen minutes anyway" (283).

The "crowd" of "folks" in the barbershop in Light in August to whom Burch brags about hijacking whiskey includes Mr. Maxey and Captain McLendon as well as an unspecified number of customers - and because Christmas facetiously tells his partner that he is "keeping these folks from working," it must also include the barbers (80).

These are the adult men in "Hair" who attend "Mr. Miller's men's Bible class" at Reverend Schultz's church; they do not seem to play any role in the church's campaign to reform Willy (228).

When Temple arrives at the Grotto in Sanctuary, she sees four men "sitting at a table near the door" (234). Two soon leave, but the other two are described with a few details. One is chewing gum with "teeth of an unbelievable whiteness and size" (234). The other has "his coat buttoned across his chest" (235). The two who remain forcibly carry Temple away from the club. All four seem to be cronies of Popeye, working with him to arrange Red's murder.

In addition to Roth Edmonds, Oscar, Dan, Lucas Beauchamp, George and Nat Wilkins, the search party that goes looking for Molly Beauchamp in Go Down, Moses includes at least two additional characters, simply referred to first as "some others" and then as "another man" (120). The race of these people is not indicated, which in Faulkner's fiction usually means someone is white. Elsewhere in the novel, however, it is clear that the only white man who lives on the McCaslin-Edmonds plantation is Roth, which explains why we identify these 'other men' as 'Negro.'

In The Reivers Boon brags to this "group of men on the Square" about how fast he can make the car go (40). Many of the Yoknapatawpha fictions include a reference to the un- or under-employed men who hang around the Courthouse during the day; presumably these men are of that variety.