Bayard Sartoris

Although his name is never mentioned in the text, the narrator of this story is Bayard Sartoris, the son of John Sartoris and grandson of Rosa Millard. As Colonel Sartoris's only son, Bayard appears or is mentioned in a total of sixteen Yoknapatawpha fictions. Faulkner probably expected most of his readers to identify him here on the basis of the seven Unvanquished stories that were published in the mid-1930s, which he also narrates. Those earlier stories similarly focus on Bayard's experiences as an adolescent living at home during the Civil War - though in all these tales Bayard writes from the perspective of an older man looking back at that time. The reference on page 673 to the Spanish-American War means that in this story Bayard is looking back at least thirty years, though it is not clear how his attitude toward the world he describes might have been changed by the time that has passed. He seems still to be looking at the Old South - from the hoop skirts that Melisandre wears to the way Granny treats her slaves - with the uncritical eyes of a child.