Buck Monaghan

In Flags in the Dust the man "with an army pilot's wings on his breast" drinking with Bayard in the Chicago nightclub flew with the Sartoris twins in the British air corps during World War I (384). In the later short story "Ad Astra," set at the front during that war, Monaghan describes himself as "shanty Irish," because his late father made "a million dollars digging sewers in the ground" (414). He is also a former student at Yale. Monaghan seems uncomfortable with his complex social status, and there is "something of the crucified" about him after three years of war (414). When peace is declared, he removes his uniform insignia: "I don't know what I am. I have been in this damn war for three years and all I know is, I'm not dead" (415). He also appears in two non-Yoknapatawpha texts by Faulkner: the short story, "Honor" (1931) and A Fable (1954).