Timeline   Glossary   Additional Resources   Bibliographies   Biographies   Genealogical Charts

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

B

• Backus, Mr.:

• Backus, Melisandre:

• Baddrington, Harold (Plex):

• Baird, Dr: An eye specialist from Atlanta who was called in to examine the war-wounded Donald Mahon by Margaret Powers in Soldiers' Pay. At her request, Dr. Baird did not inform Donald's father, the Rev. Joseph Mahon, that Donald was going blind.

• Baker, Joe: See Jobaker

• Ballenbaugh I:

• Ballenbaugh II:

• Ballenbaugh, Miss:

• Ballott:

• Barron, Jake:

• Barron, Homer:

• Bascomb, Maury: Caroline Bascomb Compson's brother who had an affair with Mrs. Patterson in The Sound and the Fury. Naturally unsuccessful at nearly any business venture he undertook, he would borrow money from almost anyone, even Dilsey.

• Basket, Herman: An Indian and friend to Crawfishford who in "A Justice" told the story that Sam Fathers passed on to Quentin Compson. In "A Courtship," he does not appear as a character, but his name is constantly used to refer to his sister.

• [Basket, Herman's, sister]: See Herman Basket's sister.

• Beard: The owner of a lot in Jefferson where a carnival was held in The Sound and the Fury.

• Beard, Mrs.:

• Beard, Virgil:

• Beard, Will C.:

• Beauregard, General P.G.T.:

• "Beat Two": The southeastern section of Yoknapatawpha County where the hamlet of Frenchman's Bend is located, mentioned in The Hamlet.

• Beat Four:

• Beauchamp, Amodeus McCaslin: The oldest child of Tennie and Tomey's Turl, whose birth and death in 1859 was recorded in the McCaslin plantation commissary ledger by Buck McCaslin. Ike McCaslin recounts the genealogy in section 4 of "The Bear" in Go Down, Moses.

• [Unnamed Beauchamp baby]: The third child of Tennie and Tomey's Turl, who was born and died in 1863, as recorded in the McCaslin plantation ledger by Buddy McCaslin.

• Beauchamp, Bobo: Born circa 1886. Though he is called the "grandson" of James Beauchamp ("Tennie's Jim") in The Reivers, Bobo's age in that novel suggests he is in fact James' son, since James was born in 1864. He was a groom for Mr. Van Tosch, the legal owner of Coppermine. He owed money to a white man, and out of desperation he planned to steal Coppermine to pay his debt, until he met his cousin Ned McCaslin in a Memphis bar. After hearing his cousin's plan, Bobo took Coppermine and surrendered him to Ned, who gave Bobo Boss Priest's car to give to the white man.

• Beauchamp, Carolina (Callina): The second child of Tennie and Tomey's Turl, who was born and died in 1862, as recorded in the McCaslin plantation ledger by Buddy McCaslin.

• Beauchamp, Henry: (1898-  ) First child of Lucas and Molly Beauchamp, and "foster-brother" to Zack Edmonds' son, Roth, in Go Down, Moses ("The Fire and the Hearth"). Born shortly before Zack's wife, Louisa, died giving birth to Roth, Henry and Roth were both nursed and cared for by Molly, at first in Zack's house, until Lucas — jealous and suspecting infidelity — demanded she be returned to him. Henry and Roth grew up together like brothers, until at the age of seven, "the old curse of his fathers" descended upon Roth and he refused to sleep in the same bed as Henry because Henry was black. Later when Roth tried to make amends by eating supper at the Beauchamps' house, Henry and Lucas both refused to eat with Henry. Roth asked Henry if he were ashamed to eat with him, to which Henry replied, "I aint shamed of nobody.... Not even me."

• Beauchamp, Hubert Fitz-Hubert: (ca. 1812-ca. 1877) The bachelor owner of Warwick, a plantation half-a-day's ride from the McCaslin plantation in Go Down, Moses. In "Was," his plantation was the perennial destination of Tomey's Turl, a slave owned by Buck and Buddy McCaslin, who would escape the McCaslin place to see Tennie, a slave owned by Hubert. While staying overnight during a hunt for Tomey's Turl, Buck McCaslin made the "mistake" of getting into bed with Hubert's sister, Sophonsiba. When Buck refused to marry Sophonsiba, Hubert got Buck to agree to gamble for his sister's hand in marriage and to end the semiannual hunts for Tomey's Turl: if Buck lost, he would have to marry Sophonsiba and purchase Tennie, whereas if Hubert lost, he would buy Turl from Buck. Though initially successful in his wager, Hubert lost when Buck's twin brother Buddy arrived and raised the stakes. His sister eventually did marry Buck McCaslin, and after their son Isaac (his nephew) is born in 1867, he sealed 50 gold coins in a silver cup to be given as a legacy to his nephew on his twenty-first birthday. In the next few years, however, Warwick fell upon hard times, and Hubert removed the gold coins, replacing them with copper coins and I.O.U.s, finally even replacing the silver cup with a tin coffee pot and an I.O.U. for the cup. About 1871-1873, Hubert took a black mistress whom he called his "cook"; when his sister discovered her, she forced Hubert to dismiss her. Between 1873 and 1877, Warwick burned, and Hubert and Tennie's great-grandfather moved to the McCaslin plantation. Hubert died about 1876-1877.

• Beauchamp, James Thucydus (Tennie's Jim): (Dec. 29, 1864-  ) The fourth child of Tennie and Tomey's Turl, and the first to survive. In Go Down, Moses, he was for several years a regular servant on Major de Spain's annual hunting trips. As a descendant of old Lucius Quintus Carothers McCaslin, he stood to inherit $1,000 willed to him by McCaslin and his sons Buck and Buddy (who added to their father's original sum), but on the night of his twenty-first birthday, he disappeared, as Buck's son, Isaac, recorded in the commissary ledger at the McCaslin plantation. Isaac traced him as far as Jackson, Tennessee, in an attempt to give his legacy to him, but he lost track in Jackson and never found him. He was the father (or grandfather) of Bobo Beauchamp, and he was the grandfather of Roth Edmonds' mistress, who conceived a child with Roth and thus perpetuated the miscegenation and incest begun by old L.Q.C. McCaslin.

• Beauchamp, Lucas Quintus Carothers McCaslin: (March 17, 1874-   ) Sixth and last child (and the third to survive past infancy) of Tomey's Turl and Tennie Beauchamp, and the grandson of old Lucius Quintus Carothers McCaslin, who except for the change from "Lucius" to "Lucas" was his namesake. As a child, he grew up as a brother alongside his white cousin Zack Edmonds, until a crisis after the birth of Zack's son in 1898 forced a division between them.

  A proud man, in Go Down, Moses Lucas went to see Isaac McCaslin on his twenty-first birthday and demanded the $1000-legacy which had been left to his black descendants by old Carothers McCaslin (and which his sons, Buck, Isaac's father, and Buddy had added to over the years). With Ike's help he opened a bank account and deposited the money. Unlike his siblings James ("Tennie's Jim") and Sophonsiba ("Fonsiba"), he stayed on the McCaslin plantation, on a "specific acreage" given to him by Cass Edmonds "to be farmed as he saw fit as long as he lived or remained on the place." In 1896 he married Molly Worsham and on their wedding night he lit a fire on the hearth which continued to burn throughout their marriage. Shortly after his son Henry was born in 1898, he crossed a flooded river in search of a doctor for Louisa Edmonds, who had just given birth to a son, Roth. But he returned too late; Louisa died, and Zack, Louisa's husband (and Cass's son) brought Lucas's wife Molly to live in the plantation house with him in order to nurse and take care of the newborn Roth. For nearly six months Lucas acquiesced with this arrangement until finally he could stand it no more and demanded that she be returned to his house. She returned, with both Henry and Roth. Filled with suspicion and jealousy over his wife's stay in Zack's house, and denied the pleasure of seeing Zack come to his house to get something, Lucas went to Zack's house and threatened to kill him with a razor. Zack stood his ground, prompting Lucas to throw away the razor, but Lucas then demanded he get his pistol. Zack did so, threw the gun on the bed so that both of them would have an equal chance to get it. They bantered back and forth for a time, Lucas refusing to kill Zack except on his own terms, as he believed a descendant on old Carothers McCaslin's male side would do, but Zack forced the issue to its when he said, "Do you think I'm any less a McCaslin just because I was what you call woman-made to it? Or maybe you aint even a woman-made McCaslin but just a nigger that's got out of hand?"

  They struggled for the gun, with Lucas successful, but when he pulled the triggerr, it misfired. The crisis over, he took the cartridge and pocketed it, contemplating it later: "the dull little brass cylinder less long than a match, not much larger than a pencil, not much heavier, yet large enough to contain two lives."

  In his old age, when he was the oldest living person on the McCaslin plantation, he got into trouble with Roth (now head of the plantation) and the law over moonshining in an attempt to quash the open competition from his daughter Nat's secret husband, George Wilkins. He intended to get Roth to call the sheriff on George, but he himself was also arrested when deputies found George's still in his backyard (placed there by a vengeful Nat). He was able to escape prosecution by revealing Nat's marriage to George the previous year, since spouses and relatives could not be forced to testify against one another. Still later, Lucas earned Roth's ire by trading a three-hundred-dollar mule owned by Roth to a salesman for a metal detector (or "divining machine") in an attempt to locate a legendary stash of money on the plantation. Finding nothing, he hid some of his own money on the place (which, of course, he promptly found with the metal detector) to trick the salesman into returning the mule and giving the machine to Lucas in order to search for the treasure himself. After the salesman gave up and left town, Lucas refused to stop searching for the legendary treasure. Molly threatened to divorce him, and Lucas almost agreed, but at the last minute, he stopped the proceedings and took her home. He later asked Roth to get rid of the machine, saying "Man has got three score and ten years on this earth.... That money's there.... But I am near to the end of my three score and ten, and I reckon to find that money aint for me."

  Lucas figures prominently also in Intruder in the Dust, in which he was accused of murdering Vinson Gowrie. With the help of Chick Mallison and Aleck Sander, he was proven innocent. He appears also in The Reivers.

• Beauchamp, Molly (also Mollie) Worsham: Wife of Lucas Beauchamp, and mother of three children, Henry, Nat, and an unnamed daughter who died giving birth to Samuel Worsham Beauchamp. Her brother is Hamp Worsham. They are descended from slaves once owned by the family of Miss Belle Worsham. In Go Down, Moses, shortly after the birth of Henry, she went to live in Zack Edmonds' house after his wife's death to nurse and take care of Zack's newborn son, Roth. She lived there nearly six months, until Lucas demanded she come back home to live. Forty-three years later, Roth helped her in her quest to get a divorce from Lucas, who refused to end his search for buried treasure, but at the last minute Lucas stopped the divorce proceedings and bought her a sack of nickle candy she liked. In the title story of Go Down, Moses, she sought help from county attorney Gavin Stevens in bringing home her grandson Samuel, who was being executed for killing a Chicago police officer. Miss Belle Worsham also contributed what money she could to bring Molly's grandson's body home. Molly appears also in Intruder in the Dust (though she is dead at the present time of the novel).

• Beauchamp, Nathalie (Nat): (ca. 1923-   ) The youngest child of Lucas and Molly Beauchamp, "born into [Lucas's] wife's old age and, it sometimes seemed to him, into his too," in Go Down, Moses. When her beaux, George Wilkins, began making whisky in direct competition with her father — and with less secrecy — Lucas began to fear that George's actions would eventually result in the discovery of his own still. He therefore set out to have George arrested, but Nat found out about his plan and arranged — by having George put his still in Lucas's own backyard — to get her father in trouble too. Lucas and George were able to escape prosecution when Lucas produced a marriage certificate showing that she and George had been married since the prior year. They eventually moved to Detroit. She is referred to in Intruder in the Dust, though not by name.

• Beauchamp, Philip Manigault:

• Beauchamp, Samuel Worsham (Butch): (1914-1940) The grandson of Lucas and Molly Beauchamp, whose mother died in childbirth, in the final, title story of Go Down, Moses. He was abandoned by his father, who at the time of the story was serving time in the state penitentiary for manslaughter. When he was found breaking into the McCaslin plantation commissary, Roth Edmonds ordered him off the place and told him never to return. He moved to Jefferson and spent a year off and on in jail for gambling and fighting, unti he was indicted for the more serious crime of breaking and entering. Two nights later, he broke out of jail and was never seen again in Jefferson. At the age of twenty-six, he was convicted of murdering a Chicago police officer and was executed. At Molly's request and through the help of Yoknapatawpha County attorney Gavin Stevens (who solicited donations from businesses in town) and Miss Belle Worsham, Molly's former employer, his body was returned home for burial.

• Beauchamp, Sophonsiba (Fonsiba): (1869-  ) Fifth child of Tennie and Tomey's Turl, and the second to live to adulthood. Like her siblings James ("Tennie's Jim") and Lucas, she stood to inherit a sizeable sum of money willed to her by her white grandfather, Lucius Quintus Carothers McCaslin, and added to over the years by McCaslin's sons Buck and Buddy. Before she could claim her inheritance, however, at the age of seventeen she married a northerner, who took her to Midnight, Arkansas, to live where he claimed he had a farm and a pension granted his father for military service by the United States government. When Buck's son Isaac found her five months later (in December 1886) to give her her inheritance, he found her living in a clumsily built log cabin with no trace of a farm and no food to speak of, despite her husband's claim to pensions and store credit. Isaac arranged with the bank in Midnight that three dollars of the $1,000 legacy be sent to her on the fifteenth of each month, so that at least for twenty-eight years, she would not starve.

• Beauchamp, Sophonsiba (Sibbey): Sister of Hubert Beauchamp. She insisted that their plantation, half a day's ride and just over the edge of the next county from the McCaslin place, be called Warwick after the place in England of which she said her brother Hubert was the true earl though he was too lazy or lacking in pride to claim. When Buck McCaslin accidentally got into bed with her on an excusion to catch an escaped slave, Tomey's Turl, her brother insisted they marry but Buck refused, so the two men decided to play cards to determine the matter: if Buck lost, he would marry Sophonsiba and Buck would buy the Beauchamps' slave Tennie (whom Tomey's Turl had come to see). Though Buck lost at first, when his brother Buddy arrived — who was a better card player — Buck was released from his obligation to marry Sophonsiba. Nevertheless, Buck did eventually marry her, and they bore one son, Issac.

• Beauchamp, Tennie: (1838-  ) Born a slave, owned by Hubert and Sophonsiba Beauchamp. After her emancipation, she took their surname as her own. Prior to the Civil War, however, she was the perennial love-object of Tomey's Turl, who would "break out" of the McCaslin plantation house and come to see her about twice a year, prompting a kind of ritualized hunt for Turl by one of his owners, Buck. When she came to live on the McCaslin place (after Hubert lost her in a card game), she married Turl and they bore a total of six children: Amodeus, Carolina (or "Callina"), and an unnamed child all died in infancy, but James ("Tennie's Jim"), Sophonsiba ("Fonsiba"), and Lucas grew to adulthood.

• Beauchamp, Terrel (Tomey's Turl): (June 1833-  ) A slave, son of Tomasina ("Tomey") and Tomey's white owner and father, Lucius Quintus Carothers McCaslin. His mother died in childbirth. After the death of his father/half-brother in 1837, his owners were Buck and Buddy McCaslin. Whenever he could, he would leave the McCaslin plantation to visit Tennie, a slave at Hubert Beauchamp's plantation Warwick, prompting a ritual hunt (depicted in "Was" in Go Down, Moses) by Buck. In 1859, when Buddy won Tennie from Hubert in a poker game, Terrel and Tennie were married. They bore a total of six children: Amodeus, Carolina (or "Callina"), and an unnamed child all died in infancy, but James ("Tennie's Jim"), Sophonsiba ("Fonsiba"), and Lucas grew to adulthood. Because Terrel was his son, old Carothers McCaslin willed a large amount of money to him (which Buck and Buddy added to over the years), but Terrel never claimed it, so the money was passed down to his own children.

• Beauchamp, Tomey's Turl: (The Town)

• Bedenberry, Brother:

• Benbow, Belle Mitchell:

• Benbow, "Little" Belle Mitchell:

• Benbow, Cassius Q. (Uncle Cash):

• Benbow, Francis:

• Benbow, Horace:

• Benbow, Judge: Possibly Will Benbow from Sartoris/Flags in the Dust. In Absalom, Absalom!, Judge Benbow was the self-appointed executor of Goodhue Coldfield's estate who sold the family store for Goodhue's daughter Rosa. She would not accept money for the sale, so he repaid her over the years by leaving baskets of food on her doorstep and by repaying bills for things she got from the stores in Jefferson but which she would not admit she had bought, including a $200 headstone for Judith Sutpen's grave. In The Unvanquished, Judge Benbow arranged for Ben Redmond to sell his share of the railroad to John Sartoris. In The Hamlet, Judge Benbow said "a milder-mannered man" than Will Varner "never bled a mule or stuffed a ballot box."

• Benbow, Julia:

• Benbow, Narcissa: (1893-   ) Sister of Horace Benbow, and second wife of Bayard Sartoris, III, whom she married in 1919. On June 5, 1920, the same day of her husband's death, she gave birth to a son, Benbow "Bory" Sartoris, named thus hoping to curb the self-destructive spirit that seems to plague the male Sartorises. As a widow, she begins to see gentlemen callers again, but she is most interested in attending to the affairs of her brother, particularly when he gets himself involved in a case defending Lee Goodwin, a bootlegger accused of murder; she opposes Horace's efforts because she fears it will affect her social standing in Jefferson. She appears in Sartoris/Flags in the Dust, Sanctuary, The Town, and "There Was a Queen."

• Benbow, Percy: Son of Judge Benbow who in Absalom, Absalom! discovered after his father's death that his father had kept strict records of all money he'd won and lost on horse races, and saw that all the winnings had been placed in Miss Rosa Coldfield's nonexistent account.

• Benbow, Will:

• Berry, Louis: An Indian in "Red Leaves" who came to a slave cabin with Three Basket to retrieve Issetibbeha's personal slave who was to be killed and buried with Issetibbeha. He and Three Basket could not understand why the slave, who had fled to escape death, "would ... rather work in the sun than to enter the earth with a chief."

• Best, Henry:

• Big Bottom: The name given the hunting lands, the big woods, owned by Major de Spain along the Tallahatchie River in "The Old People" and "The Bear" chapters of Go Down, Moses.

• Biglin, Luther:

• Biglin, Mrs. Luther:

• Binford, Dewitt:

• Binford, Mrs. Dewitt:

• Binford, Lucius:

• Bird, Tom Tom:

• Bird, Uncle:

• Birdsong:

• Birdsong, Preacher:

• Bishop, Ephriam (Eef):

• Black John: The horse which Jonas saddled for Buck McCaslin to ride during the chase (in "Was") for the escaped slave Tomey's Turl in Go Down, Moses. Buck rode Black John "because it they could just catch sight of Tomey's Turl at least one mile from Mr. Hubert's gate, Black John would ride him down in two minutes."

• Blackwater Slough: A slough near Frenchman's Bend in The Town.

• Bland, Mrs.: An aristocratic woman from Kentucky, mother of Gerald Bland, in The Sound and the Fury.

• Bland, Gerald: A Kentucky native acquainted with Quentin Compson in The Sound and the Fury. Gerald Bland reminded Quentin of his sister's seducer, Dalton Ames, and when Quentin was lost in thought of his hapless fight with Ames, he unwittingly started a fight (in the present-day) with Gerald Bland, who blackened his eye and bloodied him.

• Bledsoe:

• Bleyth, Captain: A Royal Air Force pilot acquainted with Cadet Julian Lowe in Soldiers' Pay.

• Bobolink: The horse which Gavin Breckbridge had given to his fiancée Drusilla Hawk in the "Raid" section of The Unvanquished.

• Bon, Charles: (December 1831?-May 3, 1865) Son of Thomas Sutpen and his first wife, Eulalia Bon, born either in Haiti (according to the "Chronology" in Absalom, Absalom!) or in New Orleans, according to his tombstone. Because his mother was part Negro, Sutpen divorced her. He attended college at the University of Mississippi, where he met Henry Sutpen, his half-brother. While accompanying Henry on a visit home, he met and became engaged to Henry's sister, Judith, even though he had an octoroon mistress and child living in New Orleans. On Christmas Eve, 1860, Sutpen told Henry that Bon could not marry Judith; out of love or loyalty to Bon, Henry repudiated his birthright and departed with Bon. When the Civil War began, Bon and Henry served together in a regiment formed at the university, the University Grays, but when Bon returned to Sutpen's Hundred to marry Judith, Henry shot and killed Bon at the gate and then disappeared. He appears in Absalom, Absalom!.

• Bon, Charles Etienne de Saint Velery: (1859-1884) Son of Charles Bon and his octoroon mistress, born in New Orleans. His father was killed in 1865 by Henry Sutpen, but in 1871 he was summoned to live at Sutpen's Hundred by Henry's sister, Judith, who had been engaged to his father. There, even though he was only one-sixteenth black and he appeared white, he was raised to think of himself as black. In 1879, he left Sutpen's Hundred; in 1881 he returned, married to a full-blooded black woman. A son, later known as Jim Bond, was born in 1882. In 1884, he contracted yellow fever and died along with Judith, who had nursed him during his illness. He appears in Absalom, Absalom!

• Bon, Eulalia: Born in Haiti to a sugar planter of French descent. She married Thomas Sutpen in 1827 and two years later bore a son, Charles Bon. Sutpen divorced her in 1831 when he discovered she was part black. She later moved to New Orleans, where she died, date unknown. She appears in Absalom, Absalom!

• Bond, Jim: (1882-  ) The mulatto son of Charles Etienne de Saint Velery and his full-blooded black wife, born at Sutpen's Hundred. An idiot, he lived at Sutpen's Hundred until the house was burned by Clytie in December 1909; he later disappeared and was never seen again. He was the sole surviving descendant of Thomas Sutpen. He appears in Absalom, Absalom!

• Bookwright: A family name in the Frenchman's Bend area, according to Gavin Stevens in Intruder in the Dust.

• Bookwright, Calvin (Cal):

• Bookwright, Herman:

• Bookwright, Homer:

• Bookwright, Letty:

• Bookwright, Odum:

• Bowden, Matt:

• Bowen, Captain:

• Bradley:

• Bradley, Mrs.:

• Brandt, Dr.:

• Breckbridge, Gavin: Drusilla Hawk's fiancé, who was killed at the Battle of Shiloh during the Civil War, in the "Raid" section of The Unvanquished.

• Bridger:

• Briggins, Lycurgus:

• Brown, Joe:

• Brownlee, Percival:

• Brummage, Judge:

• Buck:

• Buckner (Buck):

• Buckner, Mrs. Billie (Bill):

• Buckworth:

• Buffaloe:

• Buford (Bufe):

• Bullitt, Mrs.:

• Bullitt, R. Q. (Bob):

• Bunch, Byron:

• BUNDREN: A family of poor white farmers living in southern Yoknapatawpha County, near the hamlet of Frenchman's Bend. The story of their arduous journey to Jefferson to bury their dead matriarch, Addie, among her people, against the threats of flood and fire, is told in As I Lay Dying. A Bundren family genealogy is available.

• Bundren, Addie: A former schoolteacher, married to Anse for more than thirty years, who died and eventually was buried in Jefferson after a long and arduous journey in As I Lay Dying. She bore two children, Cash and Darl, before a feeling of betrayal — primarily by her husband's empty word "love," but also by the general lack of meaning in words — led her to have an affair with Rev. Whitfield, in which her third child, Jewel, was conceived. Shortly thereafter, she made Anse promise to bury her in Jefferson, among her "people," after she died, thus initiating the journey that constitutes the primary plot line of As I Lay Dying. She bore two more children after Jewel, both of them Anse's: Dewey Dell (her only daughter) "to negative Jewel" and Vardaman "to replace the child I had robbed him of." She served as narrator of one chapter in the novel.

• Bundren, Anse: A poor farmer in the southern part of Yoknapatawpha County near Frenchman's Bend, married to Addie for more than thirty years, and father of four children in As I Lay Dying. Lazy and shiftless, and claiming he would die if he were ever to sweat, he relied greatly on the services of his family and neighbors; as Anse's neighbor Armstid said, "durn if there aint something about a durn fellow like Anse that seems to make a man have to help him, even when he knows he'll be wanting to kick himself next minute." The journey to Jefferson to bury his dead wife, Addie, was a promise he made to Addie, but his continued perseverance in getting there, despite the trials along the way and even after Addie's body has begun to decompose and attract buzzards, is a testament both to his dogged persistance and to an unconscious selfishness; as he said after his wife died, "But now I can get them teeth. That will be a comfort. It will."

  When Anse tried to cross the flooded Yoknapatawpha River at Tull's bridge (which had been swept away), his mules were drowned and Cash's leg was broken. He was able to secure a new team in part by trading Jewel's horse for them, and later, he nearly caused Cash to lose his leg by putting a cement cast on it. He concurred in the decision to have Darl committed to the mental asylum in Jackson, and he was able to talk Dewey Dell out of the ten dollars (which Lafe had given her for an abortion) in order to purchase teeth; the money may also have been a factor in gettting the "duck-shaped woman" (from whom he borrowed a shovel to bury Addie) to marry him at the end of the novel. He served as narrator of three chapters in the novel.

• Bundren, Cash: Oldest son of Anse and Addie Bundren in As I Lay Dying. A carpenter by trade, he once broke his leg while working on a church; later, he broke the same leg while trying to cross the flooded Yoknapatawpha River with the wagon carrying Addie's coffin, which he began building before she died. He nearly lost his leg when Anse put a cast on it made of cement. Somewhat simple-minded, his thoughts primarily derived from his craft; early in the novel, he explained thirteen reasons why he "made it [her coffin] on the bevel," including reason number 6: "Except." Later, after he and his family had reached Jefferson and Darl had been sent to the asylum on the train, he summarized his philosophy in carpentry terms: "But it's a shame, in a way. Folks seems to get away from the olden right teaching that says to drive the nails down and trim the edges well always like it was for your own use and comfort you were making it. It's like some folks has the smooth, pretty boards to build a courthouse with and others dont have no more than rough lumber fitten to build a chicken coop. But it's better to build a tight chicken coop than a shoddy courthouse, and when they both build shoddy or build well, neither because it's one or tother is going to make a man feel the better nor the worse." He welcomed the journey to Jefferson as an opportunity to get a "graphophone." He served as narrator of five chapters.

• Bundren, Darl: The second child of Anse and Addie Bundren in As I Lay Dying. The most prolific voice in the novel (he narrated 19 chapters), Darl seemed to possess a gift of clairvoyance which allowed him to narrate, for instance, the scene of Addie's death, even though he and Jewel were away getting a load of lumber at the time of her death. Similarly, he knew Dewey Dell was pregnant because he had seen her with Lafe, and he knew that Jewel was illegitimate. Nevertheless, he was regarded by others as strange; as Cora Tull says, he was "the one that folks says is queer, lazy, pottering about the place no better than Anse." Out of jealousy, he constantly taunted Jewel, Addie's favorite child, and except for Jewel, he alone among the Bundrens had no ulterior motive for wanting to go to Jefferson. When they are trying to cross the flooded Yoknapatawpha River, Darl was useless in trying to save the wagon or Addie's coffin from the flood waters, and later, when they stayed at Gillespie's place, he set on fire the barn where Addie's coffin was, ostensibly to end the arduous journey with Addie's decomposing corpse. Rejected by his mother, Darl exhibited signs throughout the novel of an ego at odds with itself; lacking a definitive way of identifying himself, he demonstrated in his narratives detailed descriptions of events but seldom did he reveal any emotional attachment to his subjects. At the end of the novel, he was committed to a mental asylum in Jackson for burning Gillespie's barn. On the train to Jackson, his identity was completely severed when be began to refer to himself in the third person. He appears also in "Uncle Willy."

• Bundren, Dewey Dell: Fourth child, and only daughter, of Anse and Addie Bundren in As I Lay Dying. Impregnated by Lafe, Dewey Dell welcomed the trip to Jefferson as an opportunity to get an abortion (for which Lafe had given her ten dollars). Turned down in "Mottson" for an abortion by Moseley, she tried again in Jefferson, but instead she was tricked into giving sexual favors to Skeet MacGowan. Furious at her brother Darl because he knew she was pregnant, she led the charge to have him committed to the asylum in Jackson after he had burned Gillespie's barn.

• Bundren, Jewel: The illegitimate son of Addie Bundren and Rev. Whitfield, and Addie's third child. As a token of Addie's refusal to abide by society's standards regarding fidelity in marriage, he was her favorite child. As a result, he exhibited a sense of selfishness in his attitude toward her and his siblings; as he said (in his single monologue in the novel), "If it had just been me when Cash fell off of that church and if it had just been me when pa laid sick with that load of wood fell on him, it would not be happening with every bastard in the county coming in to stare at her because if there is a God what the hell is He for. It would just be me and her on a high hill and me rolling the rocks down the hill at their faces, picking them up and throwing them down the hill faces and teeth and all by God until she was quiet...." Only Darl knew Jewel was illegitimate, a fact about which Darl taunted him by saying, "Who was your father, Jewel?" Fiercely independent, he worked nights for Mr. Quick to buy a horse (a descendent of the spotted horses which Flem Snopes had brought into the county twenty-five years before). Nevertheless, he acquiesced when Anse traded his horse, among other things, for a new mule team when theirs were drowned trying to cross the flooded Yoknapatawpha River. Throughout the novel, Jewel exhibited quiet anger at everything, as when he nearly started a fight on the road into Jefferson with passers-by commenting on the smell of Addie's decomposing body. Even so, he was instrumental in saving the coffin from the two major threats along the way; in a sort of rage, he saved the coffin from the flood waters and later single-handedly saved it from a fire (set by Darl) in Gillespie's barn. Near the end of the novel, he released some of his anger upon Darl by helping to subdue him when Darl's part in the fire was discovered and it was decided to commit him to an asylum in Jackson.

• Bundren, Mrs.: A duck-shaped Jefferson woman and owner of a "graphophone" from whom Anse Bundren borrowed shovels to bury Addie. Anse surprised his family at the end of the novel by announcing he had married her.

• Bundren, Vardaman: The fifth and youngest child of Anse and Addie Bundren in As I Lay Dying. On the day his mother died, he caught a large fish; later, he began to associate the fish with his dead mother (leading to what is perhaps the most infamous sentence in Faulkner’s work). Believing Dr. Peabody had killed his mother, he chased away Peabody's horses and buckboard. When Addie's body lay in the coffin, he bored holes into the lid so she could breathe, inadvertently drilling holes into her face. He looked forward to the trip to Jefferson so he could get a red toy train; when he arrived, though, it was not in the store window. He saw his brother Darl set fire to Gillespie's barn, which he then told to Dewey Dell.

• Burch, Lucas:

• Burden, Beck (Rebecca?):

• Burden, Calvin, I:

• Burden, Calvin, II:

• Burden, Evangeline:

• Burden, Joanna:

• Burden, Juana:

• Burden, Nathaniel:

• Burden, Sarah:

• Burden, Vangie (Evangeline?):

• Burgess: The father of a girl Benjy Compson was accused of molesting in The Sound and the Fury. He knocked Benjy out with a fence rail.

• Burgess, Mrs.: Wife of Mr. Burgess.

• Burney, Mr.: A man in Charlestown, Georgia, father of Dewey, in Soldiers' Pay

• Burney, Mrs.: A woman in Soldiers' Pay whose son Dewey was killed in World War I, and in the process provided her with much needed prestige in Charlestown, Georgia.

• Burney, Dewey: A worthless man who, under indictment for stealing 50 pounds of sugar, agreed to join the army under Captain Green during World War I in Soldiers' Pay. Cowardly in combat, he killed his lieutenant, Richard Powers, and was later killed himself.

• Burnham, Lieutenant Frank:

• Burrington, Calvin:

• Burrington, Nathaniel:

• Burrington, Nathaniel, II:

• Burtsboro Old Town:

• Bush, Lem:

• Butler, General Benjamin: (November 5, 1818-January 11, 1893)

• Butler, Joe:

Top of Page