StrothersInUV

When Faulkner gathered the six short stories Bayard narrates, along with a seventh that he had not been able to sell, into a novel, he made a number of revisions that significantly effect the story of the Strothers family. Early in "Ambuscade" as the novel's first chapter, he clears up some of the potential ambiguity about Ringo's place on the Strothers family tree by specifying that Ringo is Simon's son and Louvinia's grandson - though still novel still makes no mention of Ringo's mother, except when Bayard says both he and Ringo nursed at same breast. Simon himself appears in the novel's last chapter, "An Odor of Verbena," a loyal "body servant" grieving beside John Sartoris' coffin. Also in this final chapter Loosh, who had last been seen going off with his wife to find freedom from slavery, makes a brief and unexplained appearance as an employee in the Sartoris stable. And both Bayard's actions in the story and his narrative of the story essentially relegate Ringo to the same role that Isom plays in Bayard's life at start of Flags - holding the reins of Bayard's horse, or opening the gate for Bayard to ride through.