Unnamed Negro Woman in the North
Character Key Number:
2162
Display Name:
Unnamed Negro Woman in the North
Sort Name:
Unnamed Negro Woman in the North
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?:
No
Biography:
In Light in August Joe Christmas and this woman lives "as man and wife" in Chicago or Detroit (225). According to the narrator, , she resembles "an ebony carving," and as Joe lies in bed with her he "tries to breathe into himself the dark odor, the dark and inscrutable thinking and being of negroes" (225-26). Since she is the only Negro woman whom the narrative mentions Joe living with, it seems likely that she is the woman Joe is remembering when he thinks about the possibility that Joanna might reject him: "No white woman ever did that. Only a nigger woman ever give me the air, turned me out" (236).