Pat Stamper
Character Key Number:
456
Display Name:
Pat Stamper
Sort Name:
Stamper, Pat
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?:
Yes
Biography:
The legendary Pat Stamper, master of "the science and pastime of horse trading in Yoknapatawph county," makes a fool of Pap, who tries to trade with him in "Fool about a Horse," and of Ab Snopes, when that story is revised and interpolated into The Hamlet. With the help of his Negro hostler, he can even get not only the better of each trade but "actual Yoknapatawpha County cash dollars" - as it's put in the novel (37) - out of the farmers who try to take him on. When he is mentioned again in The Mansion, the territory he is master of has dramatically expanded and now includes "the horse and mule circles not just in Yoknapatawpha County or north Mississippi but . . . most of Alabama and Tennessee and Arkansas too" (202).