Led by Samuel Ross Mason, a militia captain during the Revolutionary War, "Mason's ruffians" were a gang of river pirates and highwaymen who operated in the Mississippi Valley frontier in the late 18th century. Both the first-person narrator of "A Name for the City" and the omniscient third-person narrator of Requiem for a Nun reject the idea that the unnamed bandits who were briefly held in the settlement jail were part of this gang, because - as Requiem puts it - "even the last of Mason's ruffians were dead or scattered by this time" (5).
In "A Bear Hunt," the married but unnamed and unenumerated daughters of Manfred de Spain occur to the unnamed narrator when he speculates they might have been given a sewing machine by Mrs. de Spain. Manfred is usually depicted as a bachelor, but a son of his is mentioned in "Shall Not Perish."
The wife of Major de Spain is mentioned in "A Bear Hunt," when Ratliff wonders if she already owns a sewing machine - or may have given it to "one of her married daughters" (63). These daughters are never mentioned again, but Mrs. de Spain herself appears briefly but vividly in "Barn Burning" when Ab Snopes tracks manure onto the expensive "blond rug" inside the front door of her mansion (12).
In "Shall Not Perish," the son of Major de Spain is an aviator and officer who is killed fighting in the Pacific, the second World War II casualty from Yoknapatawpha County.
The biblical mother of Jesus is mentioned in two fictions. In The Sound and the Fury Rev. Shegog mentions Mary in his Easter sermon, emphasizing her sufferings as a mother, "de pangs" of childbirth, her "weeping en lamentation" as she fears for the life of her newborn child and her grief at the scene of the crucifixion (296).
The Habersham family figures in Faulkner's fiction as one of the founders of Yoknapatawpha. Martha Habersham figures in "Skirmish at Sartoris" and again in The Unvanquished as the most determined among the Jefferson ladies who pressure Drusilla to behave like a woman. Convinced that Drusilla and John Sartoris' relationship is sexual, Mrs. Habersham takes the lead in planning the wedding between them. Her relationship to the other Habershams in the fictions is not explained.
In "Pantaloon in Black" and again in Go Down, Moses, Mannie has been married to Rider for half a year when her sudden death (of unspecified causes) becomes the traumatic loss, the powerful absence, that generates the story. She is described as having a "narrow back" and "narrow" hand (241, 133). Rider indicates that she is far slighter than her powerfully built husband, but her spirit is strong: "You’s de onliest least thing whut ever kep up wid me one day, leff alone for weeks" (241, 133).
Two characters referred to as "Major de Spain" appear in fifteen different fictions. Only one was a real Confederate "Major" during the Civil War; the other is his son, Manfred, who fought in the Spanish-American War as a Lieutenant but is called "Major" as a courtesy, and as a sign of the family's high status in Yoknapatawpha. They never appear together, but in four texts - "Shall Not Perish," The Town, The Mansion and The Reivers - both are referred to, and in those cases, it is easy to tell which "De Spain" Faulkner has in mind.
Two characters referred to as "Major de Spain" appear in fifteen different fictions. Only one was a real Confederate "Major" during the Civil War; the other is his son, Manfred, who fought in the Spanish-American War as a Lieutenant but is called "Major" as a courtesy, and as a sign of the family's high status in Yoknapatawpha. They never appear together, but in four texts - "Shall Not Perish," The Town, The Mansion and The Reivers - both are referred to, and in those cases, it is easy to tell which "De Spain" Faulkner has in mind.
Minnie's former husband in Sanctuary - the first text in which she appears - is described as a "cook in a restaurant" who "didn't approve of Minnie's business" as a maid in a brothel, so he took everything he could from her and "went off with a waitress in the restaurant" (209-10). Minnie sounds glad to be rid of him. The husband referred to in The Mansion is named Ludus - and while he too steals Minnie's money, he also beats her savagely (89); although he's currently in prison, it's not clear that Minnie is rid of him.
