Unnamed Jefferson Townspeople 10

One of the narrative devices that Faulkner regularly deploys is using the larger population of Jefferson as a kind of chorus to provide commentary on the characters or events of a specific story. In almost every case it seems fair to say that the "townspeople" he uses this way are implicitly the white people, but it seems more accurate to create a separate "Character=Jefferson Townspeople" for each text in which the device occurs. These unnamed townspeople are referred to several times in "Mule in the Yard," and one of the references explicitly includes "Negroes." As a group, they speculate about Snopes' relations with the Haits, and they rush to the scenes of Mr. Hait's death and the house fire. Specific members of this group include the "housewives in the wrappers and boudoir caps of morning, children on the way to school, casual Negroes and casual whites in static and entertained repose" (254), the "hoarse and tireless men" who try to salvage some of Mrs. Hait's belongings from the fire (258) and also the men who "made a point" of finding Snopes in the supply store (257). "The town" seems to take particular pleasure in Snopes' discomfiture. One of them, called "a town wag," sends Snopes a train schedule (252), and in the supply store one or more of them enjoys pointing out his liability for the fire at Mrs. Hait's.