Unnamed Trolley Passengers

Character Key Number: 
1702
Display Name: 
Unnamed Trolley Passengers
Sort Name: 
Unnamed Trolley Passengers
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
No
Biography: 

When Quentin boards the first of the Boston streetcars he rides during the day in The Sound and the Fury, he notes that it full of "mostly prosperous looking people reading newspapers" (86). Specific passengers in the car include a Negro who is wearing "a derby and shined shoes" and holding "a dead cigar stub" - having to sit next to him prompts Quentin to reflect on the relationship between blacks and whites (86). Other passengers are "women with market baskets" and a man in "a stained hat with a pipe stuck in the band" (89). As the trolley moves through the city, Quentin notices that "men in work-clothes" are "beginning to outnumber the shined shoes and collars" (89).