In "Fool about a Horse," this Jim is Pat Stamper's assistant in the horse- and mule-trading business. We hear him called "Jim" only once, by Stamper (130); the narrator refers to him instead with variations of "that nigger" (127, etc.) But it's important to note that the narrator's vocabulary tells us a lot about the racist world in which the narrator has grown up, but nothing about the man named Jim. In addition to that word, the narrator calls him a "magician" and "a artist" (123, 127). Jim displays a genius for "doctoring" horses and mules to disguise their flaws.
There are two characters named "Jesus" in the fictions. This Jesus, Nancy's husband, is described in "That Evening Sun" as "a short black man, with a razor scar down his face." He has been missing since he threatened Nancy in the kitchen of the Compson house, saying that he might kill the white man responsible for her pregnancy ("I can cut down the vine it did come off of," 292). Nancy believes that Jesus went to Memphis but has returned to do her harm. While Jesus directly appears only once, the story is haunted by the possibility of his return.
There are two different characters named "Jesus" in the fictions. This "Jesus" - who appears to the black congregation during the Easter church service in The Sound and the Fury and to Goodyhay in the middle of combat during World War II in The Mansion - is the biblical one.
Jefferson Davis was President of the Confederate States of America for the duration of the Civil War. Although he was born in Kentucky and lived briefly in Louisiana, at the time he was elected to lead the South he had spent almost forty years in Mississippi, and had represented the state in Washington in both the House and the Senate for many years. Despite this Mississippi connection, however, he is mentioned only four times in the fictions, and curiously, mostly by non-Southerners.
The barnstormer named Jake in "Death's Drag" is "also a Jew" (like Ginsfarb). Dressed in a suit and "handsome in a dull quiet way" (188), he looks to the narrator like "a man of infrequent speech" (unlike Ginsfarb). It's worth noting that although the narrator identifies the two men as Jewish, he qualifies that by saying that "the spectators saw" that they "were of a different race from themselves, without being able to say what the difference was" (188).
The character named Jake in "Beyond" mows the Judge's lawn and during the Judge's life leaves a flower "in its season, . . . fresh and recent and unblemished, on the morning coffee tray" for the Judge's lapel (783).
In Requiem for a Nun Cecilia Farmer's mother, who is married to the Yoknapatawpha County "jailor," apparently performs all domestic duties such as washing or drying dishes with her husband's assistance, because Cecilia's "frail hands" are not capable of the tasks (180).
Faulkner tells the story about the young girl in Jefferson during the Civil War who writes her name on a window pane with a diamond ring three different times, each time changing the details. In The Unvanquished the girl is named Celia Cook; in Intruder in the Dust she is unnamed; in Requiem for a Nun - which develops her action into a poignant symbol of persistence and temporality - her name is Cecilia Farmer. The story is apparently based on a real event in the history of Oxford, Faulkner's home town.
In "Monk," this "jailor" is there along with the "other prisoners" in the county jail when Monk attempts to "make a speech" after his arrest (42). (According to the "Corrected Texts" that Noel Polk edited for Vintage International, Faulkner spelled "jailer" with an 'e' in "That Evening Sun," "An Error in Chemistry" and Intruder in the Dust with an 'o' in "Monk," Requiem for a Nun and The Reivers.
The jailer in "That Evening Sun" is characterized only by his actions. He cuts Nancy down when she tries to hang herself in jail and then beats her. (According to the "Corrected Texts" that Noel Polk edited for Vintage International, Faulkner spelled "jailer" with an 'e' in "That Evening Sun," "An Error in Chemistry" and Intruder in the Dust with an 'o' in "Monk," Requiem for a Nun and The Reivers.
