The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project

The bus station in Memphis is filled with "a few middleaged civilians but mostly soldiers and sailors enroute either to leave or to death and the homeless young women, their companions" (337). Faulkner's description allows the larger story of the Second World War to encroach on the narrative of the Compson family. Melissa Meek carries a picture of Caddy Compson standing next to a German officer in her handbag while she weaves through crowds of American soldiers preparing to fight Germany.

The soldier is described as merely "a shape (a man in khaki)," seen through Melissa Meek's tear-filled eyes (337). But he picks her up and installs her in a seat when she is overwhelmed by the crowds at the Memphis bus station. Although he is presumably part of the crowd of "soldiers and sailors enroute either to leave or to death" in the Second World War (337), Faulkner reasserts the humanity of those that make up the crowd through this soldier's stateside actions.

The "passing female child" whom Benjy accosts is named Burgess in The Sound and the Fury (1929), which provides more details about Benjy's "fumbling abortive attempt" to engage with her (339). In this earlier account, Benjy's action is informed by his mourning for Caddy; the characterization of the event in the Appendix reflects Jason and the community's interpretation of Benjy's actions as lustful.

Jason Compson IV's mistress is described as "a big plain friendly brazenhaired pleasantfaced woman no longer very young, in round 'picture' hats and (in its season) an imitation fur coat" (339-40). The residents of Jefferson refer to her euphemistically as "his friend from Memphis" (340). During her visits, she is "domestic, uxorious, connubial," but on Sunday afternoons she is on the bus "back to Memphis" (340); she enables Jason to experience a measure of connubial bliss without endangering his newfound freedom in adulthood, after the death of his mother.

Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States. He led the Union through the Civil War. By signing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, he freed the slaves in the Confederate states, including the Compson slaves in Mississippi.

Mrs. Tull is mentioned in connection with her "sister's niece by marriage," who is I.O. Snopes's second wife. (As Cora Tull, this character plays a memorable part in As I Lay Dying.)

Vernon Tull is a farmer in Frenchman's Bend; although he frequently appears in the Yoknapatawpha fictions, he plays a very minor role in this one.

This sergeant accompanies the French officer when he confronts the aviators about bringing the German prisoner into the cafe.