Character Keys

In "Hand upon Waters" Ike tells Stevens that Lonnie Grinnup had saved his "burying money" with Mitchell "at the store" (73). It's clear that the money is for his funeral expenses, but not clear who "Mitchell" is in this context. He could be the store owner (though in all the other fictions where the Frenchman's Bend store occurs, it is owned by the Varners), or - as seems more likely - Mitchell is a local undertaker, whose clients put money away for him at the store, which thus functions as a kind of bank for the people who live outside the town.

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).

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.

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

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 "Pantaloon in Black" and again in Go Down, Moses, McAndrews is the first identified white character to appear. He is "the white foreman" at the sawmill where Rider works (244). Only in the deputy sheriff’s retelling of events is McAndrews referred to by name.

Led by Samuel Ross Mason, a militia captain during the Revolutionary War, "Mason's ruffians" were a gang of river pirates and highwaymen who operated in the Mississippi Valley frontier in the late 18th century. Both the first-person narrator of "A Name for the City" and the omniscient third-person narrator of Requiem for a Nun reject the idea that the unnamed bandits who were briefly held in the settlement jail were part of this gang, because - as Requiem puts it - "even the last of Mason's ruffians were dead or scattered by this time" (5).

The wife of Major de Spain is mentioned in "A Bear Hunt," when Ratliff wonders if she already owns a sewing machine - or may have given it to "one of her married daughters" (63). These daughters are never mentioned again, but Mrs. de Spain herself appears briefly but vividly in "Barn Burning" when Ab Snopes tracks manure onto the expensive "blond rug" inside the front door of her mansion (12).

The biblical mother of Jesus is mentioned in two fictions. In The Sound and the Fury Rev. Shegog mentions Mary in his Easter sermon, emphasizing her sufferings as a mother, "de pangs" of childbirth, her "weeping en lamentation" as she fears for the life of her newborn child and her grief at the scene of the crucifixion (296).

In "Pantaloon in Black" and again in Go Down, Moses, Mannie has been married to Rider for half a year when her sudden death (of unspecified causes) becomes the traumatic loss, the powerful absence, that generates the story. She is described as having a "narrow back" and "narrow" hand (241, 133). Rider indicates that she is far slighter than her powerfully built husband, but her spirit is strong: "You’s de onliest least thing whut ever kep up wid me one day, leff alone for weeks" (241, 133).

Two characters referred to as "Major de Spain" appear in fifteen different fictions. Only one was a real Confederate "Major" during the Civil War; the other is his son, Manfred, who fought in the Spanish-American War as a Lieutenant but is called "Major" as a courtesy, and as a sign of the family's high status in Yoknapatawpha. They never appear together, but in four texts - "Shall Not Perish," The Town, The Mansion and The Reivers - both are referred to, and in those cases, it is easy to tell which "De Spain" Faulkner has in mind.

In The Reivers, Ludus works as a driver for the livery stable, but is well known for his "tomcatting" - having affairs with local black women, single and married (13). When he "borry"s a team and wagon from the stable overnight to visit "a new girl" six miles out of town, he gets into trouble with Boon (10).

In The Reivers Otis tells Lucius that Corrie (whose full first names are "Everbe Corinthia") is named for his "Grandmaw" (153). Since he is identified as Corrie's nephew, it seems likely that this woman is also her mother, or as Otis calls her, her "maw"; she died when Corrie herself was a young girl (153).

Louis Grenier occupies a special place in the history of Yoknapatawpha as the "Old Frenchman" after whom Frenchman's Bend is named. He himself never directly appears in any of the nine texts that mention him, though he gets closest to the narrative in "A Name for the City" and Requiem for a Nun, which describe the county during the antebellum years Grenier was there. In half of the fictions he is referred to only as "the Old Frenchman," and it's likely that none of the inhabitants of the Bend would recognize his name if they heard it.

While James Longstreet is not nearly as mythic a Confederate figure as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson or J.E.B. Stuart (only one character in the fictions, for example, is named after him, and even then the character's full name is "Jackson and Longstreet Fentry"), as a general and corps commander in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia Longstreet probably understood and practiced the more modern warfare that emerged on the battlefields better than any other Confederate commander.

In The Hamlet this is the justice of the peace in Jefferson who marries Flem Snopes and Eula Varner. (The office of justice of the peace derives from traditional British legal practice, where justices belonged to the landed gentry. In Mississippi the office is an elected one.

The first Justice who appears in "Barn Burning" is a "shabby, collarless, graying man in spectacles"; he presides over the Ab Snopes' trial in makeshift court in a general store (4). Described as having a "kindly" face, he discourages Harris from making young Sarty Snopes undergo questioning (4). While the Justice does not have enough evidence to convict Ab of burning Harris' barn, he tells him: "I can't find against you, Snopes, but I can give you advice. Leave this country and don't come back to it" (5).

In Intruder in the Dust Chick assumes he and his Uncle Gavin will have to "find a J.P.," a Justice of the Peace, to get legal permission to exhume Vinson Gowrie's body (72). (The office of justice of the peace derives from traditional British legal practice, where justices belonged to the landed gentry. In Mississippi the office is an elected one.

In "Miss Zilphia Gant" this local officer officiates at the marriage between Zilphia and her husband. (The office of justice of the peace derives from traditional British legal practice, where justices belonged to the landed gentry. In Mississippi the office is an elected one.

In both the short story "By the People" and the novel The Mansion this is the unnamed Justice of the Peace in Frenchman's Bend whom Will Varner orders to make Clarence Snopes a constable. (The office of justice of the peace derives from traditional British legal practice, where justices belonged to the landed gentry. In Mississippi the office is an elected one.

Judge Gowan is the judge in "A Point of Law" and again in Go Down, Moses who quickly and informally finds a common-sense way to dispose of the case against Lucas and George. Although he only appears in this one episode, Faulkner gives him a long history in Yoknapatawpha when, in the short story, Lucas recognizes him as the gentleman who, "thirty and forty years ago," used to stay with "Old Zach Edmonds" on the plantation during quail hunting season (222). The novel lengthens this pedigree: there Lucas remembers him from "old Cass' time forty and fifty years ago" (71).

The radical abolitionist John Brown fought against slavery in the West before carrying out the raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859 that was intended to inspire a slave rebellion in the South. He is not mentioned in Light in August, but Joanna Burden's grandfather is clearly one of his partisans during the pro- and anti-slavery fighting that made Kansas 'Bleeding' or 'Bloody Kansas' in the early 1850s.

There are five characters identified only as Joe in the fictions. This one appears in Intruder in the Dust, where both Edmunds and the narrator call him a "boy"; he is even referred to at one point as "Edmunds' boy," a loaded phrase in the cultural context of Faulkner's world, but in the immediate narrative context this means 'the boy that Edmunds mentioned' rather than defining a family relationship or the dynamic of an interracial relationship. Joe is the son of one of the tenant farmers on Edmunds' plantation (4, 5, etc.). The name Lucas calls him by is Joe (7).

There are five characters in the fictions identified only as "Joe." This one is the deputy who drives the sheriff's car back to town after Cotton has been captured in "The Hound" (163). Presumably the same deputy is the one driving the car earlier, when it picks up the sheriff at Varner's store. No other details about him are given.

Jody Varner appears in seven different fictions, as the manager of Varner's Store and the brother of Eula Varner. In both those roles he is not a prepossessing figure. It's always clear that his father Will is the owner of the store; the most original thing Jody does during his tenure is to hire Flem Snopes as a clerk - though that turns out to be his biggest mistake. The narrator of "Spotted Horses" predicts at the time that in ten years, "it would be Jody clerking for Flem Snopes" (166); it doesn't take Flem nearly that long to displace him, though Jody remains the nominal manager.

In The Hamlet one of the deputies who help the Sheriff capture Mink is named Jim. He drives the surrey in which they carry the prisoner back to Jefferson.

There are two characters named "Jesus" in the fictions. This Jesus, Nancy's husband, is described in "That Evening Sun" as "a short black man, with a razor scar down his face." He has been missing since he threatened Nancy in the kitchen of the Compson house, saying that he might kill the white man responsible for her pregnancy ("I can cut down the vine it did come off of," 292). Nancy believes that Jesus went to Memphis but has returned to do her harm. While Jesus directly appears only once, the story is haunted by the possibility of his return.

Jefferson Davis was President of the Confederate States of America for the duration of the Civil War. Although he was born in Kentucky and lived briefly in Louisiana, at the time he was elected to lead the South he had spent almost forty years in Mississippi, and had represented the state in Washington in both the House and the Senate for many years. Despite this Mississippi connection, however, he is mentioned only four times in the fictions, and curiously, mostly by non-Southerners.

The character named Jake in "Beyond" mows the Judge's lawn and during the Judge's life leaves a flower "in its season, . . . fresh and recent and unblemished, on the morning coffee tray" for the Judge's lapel (783).

Faulkner tells the story about the young girl in Jefferson during the Civil War who writes her name on a window pane with a diamond ring three different times, each time changing the details. In The Unvanquished the girl is named Celia Cook; in Intruder in the Dust she is unnamed; in Requiem for a Nun - which develops her action into a poignant symbol of persistence and temporality - her name is Cecilia Farmer. The story is apparently based on a real event in the history of Oxford, Faulkner's home town.

The jailer in "That Evening Sun" is characterized only by his actions. He cuts Nancy down when she tries to hang herself in jail and then beats her. (According to the "Corrected Texts" that Noel Polk edited for Vintage International, Faulkner spelled "jailer" with an 'e' in "That Evening Sun," "An Error in Chemistry" and Intruder in the Dust with an 'o' in "Monk," Requiem for a Nun and The Reivers.

President Andrew Jackson's wife, born Rachel Donelson, had been married before meeting him, and there was a legal question about the validity of their marriages - marriages plural, because they had marry a second time after her divorce was finalized. During the presidential campaign of 1828 Jackson's political opponents repeatedly (and unfairly) attacked her along with him. She died between the election and his inauguration, and so was never a First Lady.

In "Delta Autumn" and again in Go Down, Moses, Isham is "the oldest Negro" on the hunting expedition (273, 337). He attends to the needs of the white hunters in the camp. He takes particular care of Ike McCaslin, both physically by preparing his bed and emotionally by "warning" him about the young woman who visits the camp (277, 340).

At least two and probably three of the Yoknapatawpha county sheriffs are named "Hampton." They are all named, or nicknamed, "Hub," except for one "Hope Hampton." They appear in five novels and one short story. While the scholarly consensus is that there are two Sheriff Hamptons, our data suggests that there are three: grandfather, father and son - or perhaps great-grandfather, grandson and great-grandson. This youngest of them is definitely the son of a Sheriff Hampton in both the novels in which he appears.

The married daughter of Sheriff and Mrs. Hampton lives in Memphis, where she is expecting a child during the events of Intruder in the Dust.

At least two and probably three of the Yoknapatawpha county sheriffs are named "Hampton." They are all named, or nicknamed, "Hub," except for one "Hope Hampton." They appear in five novels and one short story. While the scholarly consensus is that there are two Sheriff Hamptons, our data suggests that there are three: grandfather, father and son - or perhaps great-grandfather, grandson and great-grandson.

In The Hamlet Jack Houston lives with this woman for four years in El Paso, after taking her out of a Galveston brothel seven years before. Although they are never married, she is recognized among the El Paso townsfolk as his wife. He renounces their common law marriage to return to Yoknapatawpha. His wife offers to accompany him to Mississippi and to tolerate the woman he expects to marry, but she curses him repeatedly when he abandons her and leaves her half of his savings.

According to The Hamlet, Jack Houston's mother spoiled him before her untimely death. She "had taught him to write his name before she died at last and so gave up trying to compel his father to send him to the school" (236).

Houston has no first name when he makes his first appearance, as one of the Bundrens' neighbors who attend Addie's funeral. Nor is his first name given when he - or at least his absence and his corpse - become far more important in "The Hound," where he is shot and killed by another Frenchman's Bend farmer. In the Snopes trilogy he has two different first names. As Jack in The Hamlet his biography is given in some detail, and includes a Negro mistress, a thirteen-year period of wandering around the U.S.

In "Fool about a Horse" Hoke is an offstage character who owns the pasture on the road between Frenchman's Bend and Jefferson where Pat Stamper sets up his camp. (There is also a character named only "Hoke" in Go Down, Moses who owns a sawmill in a different part of the county. Neither of these appears in their texts, and they might be the same Hoke, but it seems more likely that Faulkner is thinking of different characters.)

In both "Fool about a Horse" and The Hamlet, Herman Short is an earlier owner of the horse that is the source of the trouble.

Both "A Point of Law" and the revised version of that story Faulkner wrote for Go Down, Moses include a "deputy marshal" who sits inside the courthouse chewing a toothpick (221, 70). The novel version identifies him as an "oldish white man" whom Lucas knows from another context (70). In both texts the Judge calls him "Henry" (222, 72).

Mollie's brother Hamp in both "Go Down, Moses" and the chapter with that title in Go Down, Moses is an "old man" with a "fringe of white hair" and a belly that is "bloated from the vegetables" on which he lives but whose face resembles that of "a Roman senator" (263, 360 - except that the comparison is to "a Roman general" in the novel). He and his wife join Mollie in mourning her grandson. The "Molly's brother" who works for Eunice Habersham in Intruder in the Dust is the same character (117).

The outlaw named Grumby seems designed to strike every possible reader - regardless of race or region - as a villain. He first appears in the short story "The Unvanquished," as the leader of Grumby's Independents, an irregular group intent on terrorizing the Mississippi countryside, and the depredations of his gang make his name a source of terror to both the black and the white inhabitants of Yoknapatawpha.

In "Skirmish at Sartoris" and again in the chapter with that name in The Unvanquished, George Wyatt is a former member of Colonel John Sartoris' "troop" (58, 187) and a key ally in his campaign to keep freed blacks from either voting or being elected. The Wyatts whom Faulkner had written about in his earlier fictions, Flags in the Dust and "A Rose for Emily," belong to the town's upper class, but there is no overt indication that George is a member of that family or (other than the fact that he is literate) about his own rank, in society or in the army.

The George who appears in Sanctuary seems to be the regular porter on the train between Oxford and Holly Springs. Clarence Snopes invariably tips him with a cigar instead of cash, but when Horace asks George what he is going to do with it, he replies "I wouldn't give it to nobody I know" (177).

A Union general named Smith is mentioned in four of the Yoknapatawpha fictions. His first name never appears. There were two Union Generals named Smith who fought Confederate Nathan Bedford Forrest in Mississippi at various times after the fall of Vicksburg. General William Sooy Smith was defeated by Forrest on February 22, 1864 in the Battle of Okolona, and did in fact fight Forrest "up and down the road to Memphis" - as Faulkner's General Smith does in "The Unvanquished" and again in the novel with that name (79, 128).

Robert E. Lee, the most famous of the generals who led the Confederate forces during the Civil War, is mentioned in 11 different Yoknapatawpha fictions. For most of the war he was in command of the Army of Northern Virginia, where the Confederate regiment mustered in Jefferson was fighting, but at the beginning of 1865, the last year of the war, he was appointed General-in-Chief of the Confederate States Army. He never appears in person.

On the list of Civil War military leaders that appears in Requiem for a Nun, there are "two Johnstons" (188). There were actually three Confederate Generals named Johnston, but it's likely that Faulkner is thinking of Joseph, who has his own character entry, and Albert S. Johnston, who was killed early in the War but not, according to the narrative, before he would have heard the Confederates' "shrill hackle-lifting yelling" during the fighting (188). (The other possibility is the less famous Robert D. Johnston. Only 'Joe' Johnston appears in other fictions.