Simon Strother

An elderly black Servant, father of Elnora and Caspey, and Bayard Sartoris' coachman and butler. The novel's narrator says Simon was three when he watched his grandfather Joby bury the Sartoris silver, which must have occurred around 1863 when the fall of Vicksburg made Mississippi vulnerable to Union troops. But although he was born a slave, Simon seems to long for the old plantation: in the novel he continues to talk, respectfully, to his former master, Colonel John Sartoris, even though "Marse John" has been dead for more than forty years (112). Simon is shrewd enough to know how to manipulate his current employer, John's son Bayard, whom Simon calls "Cunnel," but the language the narrator uses to describe Simon is often extremely racist, i.e. "his apelike head" (239). At the very end of the novel Simon is found murdered in the cabin of Meloney Harris, to whom he had given Baptist church money entrusted to him for her to open a beauty parlor. Simon is said to be Joby's grandson.