Unnamed Reformist Sheriffs

The reference to this character|these characters in The Mansion is a good example of how hard it is to create data entries for many of the inhabitants of Faulkner's imaginative world. As part of the novel's description of Jake Wattman's moonshine operation, the narrator refers to the "recurrent new reform-administration sheriff" in Yoknapatawpha who hopes to raid it (244). "Sheriff" is singular. "Recurrent," however, suggests more than one sheriff. And there's no way to tell if in Faulkner's imagination any of these sheriffs are named Hampton or Bishop, the county sheriffs who are named in the novel. Moreover, the tone of the passage implies that if their "administration" is overtly committed to "reform," the sheriffs themselves are happy with the status quo: they "notify [Jake] that he had to be raided again" in time for him to remove and hide his operation (244).