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E

• Earl: See Triplett, Earl

• Ed: A police officer in Soldiers' Pay who attempted to arrest Gilligan and Lowe for being drunk and rowdy on the train.

• Ed:

• Edmonds, Alice: Wife of McCaslin "Cass" Edmonds, and mother of Zachary, who taught Tennie Beauchamp's daughter Fonsiba "to read and write too a little" in Go Down, Moses ("The Bear").

• Edmonds, Carothers McCaslin (Cass): (1850-  ) Great-grandson of Lucius Quintus Carothers McCaslin, husband of Alice, and father of Zachary. He was the cousin of Ike McCaslin, who was sixteen years younger than him. After the death of Ike's elderly father in 1879, he became Ike's surrogate father, taking him on Major de Spain's annual hunts and participating in Ike's education about woodsmanship in "The Old People" and "The Bear" sections of Go Down, Moses. Even though he is a descendant on the female side of the family, he inherited the McCaslin plantation after Ike repudiated his claim at the age of twenty-one. In "The Fire and the Hearth" section of Go Down, Moses, it is revealed that he built a house for Lucas Beauchamp and his wife and "allotted Lucas a specific acreage to be farmed as he saw fit as long as he lived or remained on the place." He appears also in The Reivers, where he is one of three caretakers (with Major de Spain and General Compson) of Boon Hogganbeck, and in The Town, where he is referred to as the father of Roth instead of his grandfather as elsewhere.

• Edmonds, Carothers (Roth): (March 1898-  ) A bachelor, son of Zachary, grandson of McCaslin Edmonds, and present-day owner (in 1941) of the McCaslin plantation in Go Down, Moses. He was nursed and cared for in early childhood by Molly Beauchamp after the death of his own mother. A playmate of Lucas Beauchamp's son Henry (who is called Roth's "foster-brother"), at the age of seven "the old curse of his fathers, the old haughty ancestral pride based not on any value but on an accident of geography, stemmed not from courage and honor but from wrong and shame, descended on him" when Roth refused to sleep in the same bed with Henry because Henry was black and he was white.

  As owner of the McCaslin plantation, he had difficulties with Lucas, a tenant and the oldest person on the place, because of Lucas's bootlegging and search for hidden treasure. He interceded successfully in Lucas's affairs when Molly threatened to divorce him because of Lucas's search for treasure. In the "Delta Autumn" section of Go Down, Moses, he had an affair with a woman in which she became pregnant. He refused to marry her, leaving her only some money for Ike McCaslin to give to her. In his conversation with her at the hunting camp, Ike realized she was the black grand-daughter of James Beauchamp. By conceiving a child with her, thus, Roth perpetuated the miscegenation compounded by incest that his great-great-great-grandfather Lucius Quintus Carothers McCaslin had instigated by conceiving a child, Tomey's Turl, with his daughter Tomasina.

  He appears also in Intruder in the Dust, where he is a friend of Gavin Stevens; The Town, in which he signed a note for Lucius Hogganbeck to buy a Model-T Ford (and in which he is called Cass Edmonds's son rather than his grandson); and "Race at Morning."

• Edmonds, Louisa: (  -1898) Wife of Zachary "Zack" Edmonds and mother of Roth. She died giving birth to Roth in March 1898, and Zack immediately brought Lucas Beauchamp's wife, Molly, into his house to nurse and care for both Roth and Molly's own son, Henry; according to "The Fire and the Hearth" in Go Down, Moses, "It was as though the white woman had not only never quitted the house, she had never existed — the object which they buried in the orchard two days later ... a thing of no moment, unsanctified, nothing...." Though her death figured prominently in "The Fire and the Hearth" as the reason for Lucas Beauchamp's suspicion that Roth had stolen Molly from him, her name is never mentioned in the novel; only in The Reivers is her name revealed.

• Edmonds, Sarah: See Priest, Sarah Edmonds.

• Edmonds, Zachary (Zack): (1874-ca. 1921?) Son of Cass and Alice Edmonds and great-grandson of Lucius Quintus Carothers McCaslin. He died sometime before 1941. Born almost at the same time as Lucas Beauchamp, he and Lucas were childhood playmates despite the difference in their races. When his wife, Louisa, died giving birth to Roth, he brought Lucas's wife, Molly, into the plantation house to nurse Roth and her own child, Henry. After about six months, however, Lucas came and demanded Zack return his wife to him. She returned to Lucas's house, with both children, and when Zack never came to retrieve his son, Lucas — filled with suspicion and jealousy over his wife's stay in Zack's house, and denied the pleasure of seeing him come to his house to get something — went to Zack's house and threatened to kill him. Zack stood his ground bravely and was nearly murdered by Lucas with his own pistol, but the gun misfired.

• Elma, Miss:

• Elnora (or Elnore): A mulatto servant in the home of Bayard Sartoris, sister of Caspey, and the daughter of Simon Strother in Sartoris/Flags in the Dust. She was the mother of Isom. In "There Was a Queen," she was Caspey's wife and mother of three: Isom, Joby, and Saddie. Unbeknownst to her, in "There Was a Queen" she was the daughter of Colonel John Sartoris.

• Emmy: The daughter of a drunken housepainter whom the Reverend Joseph Mahon took into his home after he discovered she had had an affair with his son Donald in Soldiers' Pay. When Donald could not recognize her upon his return, she became distressed; nevertheless, she nursed him, even after his marriage to Margaret Powers. Emmy was also the object of Januarius Jones' lechery, and in a confused moment after Donald's death, she gave in to him.

• Ephraim:

• Ephum:

• Eunice:

• Ewell, Bryan:

• Ewell, Walter: A member of Major de Spain's hunting parties in the 1870s and '80s, whose rifle never missed its target. In Go Down, Moses ("The Old People"), he shot a yearling (or "spike") buck just before Ike McCaslin and Sam Fathers saw the great buck, to which Sam Fathers said, "Oleh, Chief ... Grandfather." In The Mansion, he was a member of the hunting party organized to kill a bear seen near Varner's mill dam. In The Reivers, he was said to have tried unsuccessfully to teach Boon Hogganbeck how to shoot. He appears also in "A Bear Hunt" and "Race at Morning."

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