In both "Lion" and Go Down, Moses, the passengers on the train from Memphis to Hoke’s are “buttonholed” by Boon (188, 222), forced to listen to him talk about Lion, and too intimidated to tell him that he is not allowed to drink on the train. (Under the Jim Crow laws, railroad cars were racially segregated, so all these passengers would have been white.)
In As I Lay Dying, Darl notes "the heads turning like the heads of owls" as he is taken down the aisle of the train car, laughing (253). These other passengers have an obvious reason to stare at him. (Under the Jim Crow laws, railroad cars were racially segregated, so all these passengers would have been white.)
These are the people who ride on the passenger trains that several of the major characters in Flags in the Dust travel on: for example, the train that brings Horace back to Jefferson or the one that takes Jenny and Old Bayard to Memphis. In the second instance we are told that some of the people "in the car" knew the Sartorises, but otherwise they are not individuated (245). (Under the Jim Crow laws, railroad cars were racially segregated, so all these passengers would have been white.)
In "A Point of Law" and again in Go Down, Moses, the deputy who helps arrest Lucas and George is named Tom - though he is unnamed until the sheriff gently rebukes him by name (218, 64). In both texts he is described as with the words "plump" and "voluble" (217, 62); he does most of the talking during the arraignment, and displays some racial pride in the way he explains how easy it was to discover where the black men had hidden the still.
The narrator of "A Rose for Emily" describes Tobe as "an old man-servant - a combined gardener and cook" (119), and never refers to him except as "the Negro" or "the Negro man" (120, 122, etc.). The only time we hear his name is when Emily uses it to summon him (121). He appears to have been in her employ since he was "young man" (122), and at least since the time her father died. Earlier drafts of "A Rose for Emily" include an extended conversation between him and Emily. His role in the published version of the story is entirely silent and elusive.
This "Tobe" appears in Flags in the Dust as the hostler working for the white horse trader who owns the stallion Young Bayard tries to ride; according to the trader, Tobe is the only person the horse allows to handle him.
The "Pettigrew" in the short story "Beyond" is Judge Allison's attorney and the executor of his will, responsible for making sure that the Judge's last wishes are implemented - though he doesn't seem to do so. In Requiem for a Nun - published almost two decades after "Beyond" - a man named 'Thomas Jefferson Pettigrew' is the source of the name of the town that is the seat of Yoknapatawpha county, but it's not likely Faulkner is consciously thinking of a connection between the characters.
In both "A Name for the City" and Requiem for a Nun, the name of the "special rider" who carries the U.S. mail from Nashville to the Mississippi settlement - Thomas Jefferson Pettigrew - is the source for the name the county seat of Yoknapatawpha. In both texts he is small but stubborn, loyal to the regulations of the federal government but susceptible to the right kind of bribery.
The rural and poor hamlet of Frenchman's Bend appears or is referred to in 18 different Yoknapatawpha fictions; this entry focuses on one of the texts that characterizes the people who live there as a group. In "Miss Zilphia Gant" the neighbors of the Gant family are, like many other groups of people in the Yoknapatawpha fictions, a nosy, gossipy bunch. When Gant's assistant goes to the local store to complain about his treatment, he finds them "gathered at the store" already talking about "the pistol incident" - that is, about Mrs.
