Cora Tull

The wife of Vernon and the mother of a fluxuating number of daughters, Cora Tull is described by the third-person narrator of The Hamlet as a "strong, full-bosomed though slightly dumpy woman" whose face perpetually wears "an expression of grim and seething outrage . . . directed not at any Snopes or at any other man in particular but at all men, all males" (357). This is a more extreme version of the 'Cora Tull' whom readers meet in the earlier As I Lay Dying, where she narrates three sections herself, and plays a substantial role as Addie's nearest neighbor. Like Addie, she was once a school teacher. Both her sections and the larger narrative reveal her to be a frugal, officious and conscientious woman who is fond of singing hymns inside and outside of church. She attends Addie at her deathbed, and in her commentaries often sees "God's bounteous love for His creatures" in very unlikely places (24). The roles she plays in the other four fictions that mention her are all minor ones.