Unnamed Infant 3

In "Delta Autumn" Ike refers to the illegitimate child that the unnamed young woman brings into the tent only as "a child" and "that" - as in "Is that his?" (278, 277). Its gender is not specified. Swaddled in a "blanket-and-tarpaulin-wrapped bundle," its physical appearance is never described, but legally it is "black" like its mother. Since Don Boyd is its father, its last name could be his, but the story makes it clear that the white father will play no role whatsoever in any future the infant might have. (When Faulkner revised the story for inclusion as a chapter in Go Down, Moses, the child is a boy; he still has no name, but his McCaslin genealogy gives him a radically new significance in the larger narrative of Yoknapatawpha. Thus the novel's infant has his own entry in the database; see the entry for Roth Edmonds' Child.)