Dicey|Negro Midwife

Character Key Number: 
2252
Display Name: 
Dicey|Negro Midwife
Sort Name: 
Dicey|Negro Midwife
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
Yes
Biography: 

In both "Wash" and Absalom! Milly's baby is delivered by an old Negro midwife who lives in a cabin "three miles" from the fishing camp (542, 230). The short story refers to her mainly as "the Negress" (535), but Sutpen once calls her "Dicey" (544). She is not named in the novel. In the short story she witnesses Wash killing Sutpen, "peering around the crazy door with her black gargoyle face of a worn gnome" (545), while in the novel she only hears this event from inside the camp. In both texts she flees as soon as it happens.