Mrs. Compson

The Compson family is one of the most important in the Yoknapatawpha fictions. They are already in the county by the 1830s, and still a presence there, though a very diminished one, in the 1940s. But it is not easy to identify the "Mrs. Compson" who appears in this story. Bayard says she is "was older than Granny" (62). Chronologically, she should be the wife of the General Compson who is the grandfather of the children in The Sound and the Fury and to whom Judith Sutpen delivers a letter during the War in Absalom, Absalom! - this is the "Mrs. Compson" who appears in the other Unvanquished stories. But according to Bayard, the man she is married to was "locked up for crazy a long time ago" (62). This cannot be the "General Compson" who appears in the other Yoknapatawpha fictions. Perhaps her husband is the Governor Compson who was the General's father. In any case, she shares the same dismay at Drusilla's behavior as Louisa, Mrs. Habersham and the other ladies of Jefferson.