Unnamed Federal Agent

Character Key Number: 
2223
Display Name: 
Unnamed Federal Agent
Sort Name: 
Unnamed Federal Agent
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
Yes
Biography: 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation did not begin investigating bank robberies until the Depression, a decade after the Sartoris bank was robbed. But Faulkner is almost certainly thinking of the F.B.I. in "There Was a Queen" when he has Narcissa identify the man with whom she has sex as "a Federal agent" who came into possession of the letters she is anxious to get back while pursuing "the man who had robbed the bank" (740). The narrative describes him as "bald" and "youngish" with "a clever face"; based on how he looks and talks, Miss Jenny immediately labels him a "Jew" and a "Yankee" (736), and refuses to sit at the dinner table with him.