Louisa Hawk

Louisa Hawk, Bayard's Aunt Louisa, would call herself (to quote from her letter to Rosa Millard) "the widow of a lost cause," which, she might add, is "the highest destiny of a Southern woman" (61). Her husband was killed while serving in the Confederate army during the Civil War. She is appalled by her daughter Drusilla's unlady-like behavior, "flouting and outraging all Southern principles of purity and womanhood" (62), and travels from the family plantation in Alabama to Yoknapatawpha to take charge of the campaign to make Drusilla resume wearing dresses and to make John Sartoris marry her. Louisa's character is also defined by the handkerchief she carries "that made the whole cabin smell like dead roses" (67), and the "wad of some kind of black knitting" that she is always working on but never finishes (68).