Unnamed Wife of Deputy Sheriff

In "Pantaloon in Black" and again in Go Down, Moses, the wife of the deputy who narrates much of the last section of the story is described as "a stout woman, handsome once, graying now and with a neck definitely too short, who looked not harried at all but choleric" (252, 147). She is impatient with her husband, and preoccupied with her own concerns; her rapid movements between kitchen and dining room suggest her lack of interest in her husband's account of a black man's lynching. She has the last word in both texts: "I'm going to clear this table then and I'm going to go to the picture show" (255, 152).