Granby Dodge
Text:
Character Key:
Display Name:
Granby Dodge
Sort Name:
Dodge, Granby
Race:
White
Gender:
Male
Class:
Lower Class
Rank:
Major
Vitality:
Alive
Occupation:
Farming
Specific Job:
Mule trader, Preacher
First Mentioned:
Biography:
Granby Dodge is the son of a remote kinsman of Cornelia Mardis. The narrator describes him as "some kind of an itinerant preacher" as well as a trader of "scrubby horses and mules" (20). According to his description, "we" - the people of Yoknapatawpha - "pitied him," but adds that reportedly as a preacher "he became a different man," his diffidence and shyness transformed into eloquence and power (20). He also turns out to be someone who can scheme patiently for years to get the Mardis-Holland estate. His ultimate 'confession' to the story's murders is made without words.
Note:
CUT: The hopelessly mediocre Granby Dodge is the son of a remote kinsman of Cornelia Mardis. Gavin Stevens, who exposes his guilt in the story's two murders, sums Dodge up this way: "We knew of him only that he was some kind of an itinerant preacher, and that now and then he gathered up strings of scrubby horses and mules and took them somewhere and swapped or sold them. Because he was a man of infrequent speech who in his dealings with men betrayed such an excruciating shyness and lack of confidence that we pitied him, with that kind of pitying disgust you feel for a crippled worm, dreading even to put him to the agony of saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a question. But we heard how on Sundays, in the pulpits of country churches, he became a different man, changed; his voice then timbrous and moving and assured out of all proportion to his nature and his size" (20)
Individual or Group:
Individual
Character changes class in this text:
digyok:node/character/12901