Unnamed Negro "Boys"

Character Key Number: 
3716
Display Name: 
Unnamed Negro "Boys"
Sort Name: 
Unnamed Negro "Boys"
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
Yes
Biography: 

This entry represents the group that Lucius refers to in The Reivers when he wonders how heroic his role in the story really is. If the Negro Bobo has the automobile, he thinks, then all the adventurers would have to do to get it back is "send one of the family colored boys to fetch it" (224). These "boys" don't ever appear in the narrative, and it's not clear what "family" they are connected with - McCaslin? Priest? Edmonds? Because Faulkner's southern whites regularly use "boy" to refer to adult black males, it's not clear how old these "boys" are, or whether they are tenant farmers or domestic servants, or the children of people in one of these groups. But Lucius' anxiety about whether his place in the narrative could have been filled instead by any one of these "colored boys" seems significant enough to merit recognition.

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