In the last three chapters of The Unvanquished, Bayard undergoes a significant identity transformation that deeply affects his sense of self. Granny and John Sartoris’ deaths are two events that thrust Bayard into a reconsideration of his role within the Sartoris family, but more largely, as the heir to a slaveholding and landowning white man in the American South. 

In his chapter “Destruction and Reconstruction,” Atkinson describes The Unvanquished as a narrative of dispossession, citing the ways that for Bayard, “dispossession imprints memory with trauma, initiating an ongoing struggle between the reality of absence and, in turn, the strong desire for recovery and return” (Atkinson, 230). While dispossession usually connotes a deprivation of land, property, or other material possessions, Bayard repossesses/recovers something more abstract: his coming of age as “John Sartoris’s boy” after avenging Granny’s death and his new identity label as “The Sartoris” upon his father’s passing. 

Bayard “proves” himself as worthy of continuing on the Sartoris name by killing Grumby in the name of revenge for Granny. Not only does Bayard shoot Grumby, he and Ringo grotesquely affix his dead body to the “old compress,” which I couldn’t find an adequate definition for, but may be interpreted as her gravesite. Uncle Buck lauds Bayard for this incredibly violent action, boasting, “…‘And if anybody wants to see that too,’ I told John Sartoris, ‘just let them ride into Jefferson and look on Rosa Millard’s grave!’ ‘Ain’t I told you he is John Sartoris’ boy? Hey? Ain’t I told you?” (“Vendée” in The Unvanquished, p. 186). By killing Grumby and avenging Granny, Bayard lives up to one key standard of masculinity that is expected of Southern men, which is using violence to solve problems and show strength. In an earlier section, Drusilla greets Bayard as “John Sartoris”, which I thought was curious. Later, Drusilla’s romantic associations with both John Sartoris and Bayard coupled with that strange greeting led me to believe that Drusilla has always viewed both men as one in the same, especially as Bayard embarks on the path to become his father. 

Uncle Buck emphasizes the importance of Bayard’s reputation in their town as well, as Bayard is poised to succeed John as his only acceptable heir. As head of the family, Bayard would be expected to protect the family’s property, wealth, and family members from harm. Once Bayard and Ringo pin Grumby’s body to the board above Granny’s grave, Ringo says, “Now she can lay good and quiet” (“Vendée”, in The Unvanquished, p. 184). Grumby’s gruesome display represents a recovery of what was taken from Bayard and the Sartorises, signaling that the debt has been repaid and Granny is able to rest. For the reader, this violence may feel uncharacteristic of Bayard, who in previous chapters wanted nothing more than to escape the horror of his reality and conceptualize the brutal scenes before him as matchsticks, toy soldiers, and horses. Although Bayard’s pistol was “level and steady as a rock” when he shot Grumby, he had a dreamlike fit of panic and sadness during his sleep following the event (“Vendée” in The Unvanquished, p. 183). This signifies Bayard’s recurring struggle and inability to fully come to terms with trauma and violence, revealing that Bayard is actually composed of the opposite of these hyper masculine standards to which he is held. Unlike his father, he is able to show emotion and vulnerability. 

Finally, by becoming “The Sartoris,” Bayard’s perception of Ringo shifts into what would be common of a Southern white man who owned enslaved people. Bayard reflects on his changed relationship with Ringo and notes, “I remember how I thought then that no matter what might happen to either of us, I would never be The Sartoris to him…maybe because he had outgrown me…” (“An Odor of Verbena”, in The Unvanquished, p. 215-216). Bayard realizes the weight of what it means to be “The Sartoris” by acknowledging the power dynamic that comes with inheriting his Father’s name and assets. But in this moment, Bayard still holds on to that shred of insecurity from childhood that Ringo has “outgrown” him and will surpass him in life’s journey. Then, Bayard calls attention to Ringo’s pseudo-family relationship with the Sartorises in a new way: 

“…but I rather think it was that same quality which used to enable him to replenish his and Granny’s supply of United States Army letterheads during that time- some outrageous assurance gained from too long and too close association with white people: the one whom he called Granny, the other with whom he had slept from the time we were born until Father rebuilt the house. We spoke one time, then no more…” (“An Odor of Verbena”, in The Unvanquished, p. 217-218). 

This “outrageous assurance” that Ringo gained while living with the Sartorises has the tone that Ringo does not and has never fully belonged in the Sartoris family. In a way that Bayard has never verbalized before, he and his family are reduced to “white people,” which illustrates a sharp contrast along racial lines. Bayard rhetorically minimizes Ringo’s relationship with Granny and himself by saying “the one whom he called Granny”, and “the other whom he had slept from the time we were born,” using “the one” as a way to depersonalize and distance himself and Granny from Ringo. Because Bayard is the narrator, the reader only gets to see one (unreliable/subjective) perspective of his relationship to Ringo. I wonder if Ringo had a piece of this narrative, what would he say? I would want to know how Ringo’s opinion of Bayard has changed as well. 

The deaths of his mother-like and father figure effectively seal Bayard’s transition from adolescence into adulthood. Although everyone around Bayard sees him as an image and successor of his father, Bayard’s sense of self remains tied up in his childhood trauma as he struggles to navigate the complexities and shifting nature of Southern society at the time.

When it has become apparent that the South has lost the Civil War, Drusilla Hawk – while initially incensed and pessimistic – is one of the few characters who immediately begins to contemplate a reimagined future, specifically a future in which women will play a larger role than fulfilling a destiny of serving as dutiful wives, mothers, and symbols of Southern gentility. This vision seems particularly personal and important to Drusilla who, as soon as she is able, joins the war alongside Bayard’s father, John Sartoris, as a soldier, screaming out the rebel yell with her countrymen. When Drusilla does finally reappear, it seems to Bayard as though she has “deliberately tried to unsex herself” (Faulkner 189). Swapping out dresses and parasols for “dirty sweated overalls and shirt and brogans,” Drusilla is empowered to redefine her role as a woman in Southern society and contribute physically to the effort of rebuilding (195).

Drusilla’s determination and vision for her life are no match for societal structures that reassert themselves aggressively during the years of Reconstruction, and Aunt Louisa’s insistence that Drusilla return to wearing dresses and stop working in the fields mirrors Faulkner’s commentary regarding the past’s grip on the future. In the same way that the South copes with its punishing defeat, Drusilla too readjusts her expectations for her life: instead of pursuing independence on her own terms, she seeks out power, influence, and status over others. Not long after John Sartoris tells Drusilla that “they have beat you” are the two prepared to be wed, equating Drusilla’s defeat in attaining independence to a return to the confines of marriage (203). Ironically – or perhaps quite fittingly – Drusilla and John’s marriage at the courthouse is planned for the same day as the first elections organized by carpetbaggers attempting to get Cassius Q. Benbow, an African American, elected Marshal of Jefferson (204). Clad in a wedding dress, veil, and wreath, Drusilla and John go to the courthouse, but instead of marrying, they commit murder. While John convinces the other men outside the courthouse that he acted in self-defense (“We all heard”), Drusilla emerges from the building “carrying the ballot box, the wreath on one side of her head and the veil twisted about her arm” (207). Drusilla is appointed the new voting commissioner, and by the time she arrives back home, her dress is “torn,” her wreath is “twisted,” and her veil is “ruined,” yet she is in full command of the voting box, and thus, the election itself.  

Drusilla may have been forced to return to wearing dresses, but it is now on her own terms, and along with her role as Mrs. Sartoris, Drusilla has ensured that she will command authority and influence politically and socially. In denying the first free elections to take place honestly and peacefully, Drusilla has brought the past back into the present. Surrounding Drusilla who is still wearing her wedding dress, the men who took part in the vote – all voting “No” – reignite the rebel yell from the war, screaming, “‘Yaaaaay, Drusilla!’” and “‘Yaaaaaay, John Sartoris! Yaaaaaaay!’” (210) Described as “ragged and fierce,” Faulkner emphasizes the refusal that both Drusilla and the men have to admit defeat, opting to reignite the same battlecry from the war, but this time instead of weapons, the battle is fought socially and politically.

This obsession with returning or reclaiming the past as a way to cope with loss in the present consumes Drusilla. She doubles down on her hatred of the Northerners and sees her duty as one of vengeance. While walking alongside Drusilla, Bayard reminds her that the carpetbaggers that John killed “were men,” that they were “human beings” (223). Drusilla’s response is only that “they were northerners, foreigners who had no business here. They were pirates” (223). There is an aggressive sense of protectionism that exudes from Drusilla, not unlike the intense odor that exudes from the verbena leaves that she wears behind her ears. This smell is powerful, just like the pull and allure of the past, and even Bayard is unable to fully escape it. While Faulkner suggests Bayard is different from Drusilla and from the other men who seek to uphold outdated social codes, he also suggests that Bayard’s actions alone will never be enough to shift the tide. Upon refusing to avenge his father’s murder through murder, Bayard returns to his bedroom only to be overwhelmed by the smell of the “single sprig” of verbena left lying on his pillow, emitting an odor which one “could smell alone above the smell of horses” (254). Through the verbena scent, Faulkner suggests in the final lines of the novel that the past is not only powerful, but exists in the very air that we breathe.

Throughout The Unvanquished, Bayard is confronted with and often is forced to participate in scenes of violence. Although Bayard is fascinated by the war, he is woefully unprepared for the action that he is regularly thrown into. In Ambuscade, Retreat, Raid, and Riposte in Tertio, Faulkner takes a consistent and fascinating approach to describing scenes of war and violence by not describing them or transforming them into unthreatening micro-objects or sounds as seen or heard through the eyes of Bayard. 

In Ambuscade, Bayard and Ringo steal Father’s musket and shoot at what they think is a Union soldier, but they actually hit the horse instead. At the moment of the shooting, Bayard recalls, “…and then my sights came to level and as I shut my eyes I saw the man and the bright horse vanish in smoke. It sounded like thunder and it made as much smoke as a brushfire and I heard the horse scream but I didn’t see anything else…” (p. 26, Ambuscade, in The Unvanquished). Faulkner plays around with the dichotomy of sight/blindness in this quote, as Bayard needs his sight to complete the action of shooting a gun but closes his eyes so as to not see the consequences. The line, “as I shut my eyes I saw” connotes a kind of dreamlike state where Bayard may be able to convince himself that what he saw or didn’t see wasn’t real. This is a narrative style that Faulkner uses throughout these scenes to describe the psychological self-protection mechanism that Bayard uses to shield himself from traumatic situations. Bayard relies only on the sounds of this event to give him information about it, which can sometimes be less threatening or shocking than seeing the actual aftermath. 

In Retreat, Bayard actually gives voice to these protection mechanisms by reflecting, “There is a limit to what a child can accept, assimilate; not to what a child can believe because a child can believe anything, given time, but to what it can accept, a limit in time, in the very time which nourishes the believing of the incredible” (p. 66, Retreat, in The Unvanquished). This line is interesting because it contains a heavier and more complex wisdom than Bayard in his child state could put forth, which leads me to believe that this could either be an older Bayard reflecting back on this time or Faulkner himself inserting his own reflections. This pause in Bayard’s chaotic childlike narration brings the reader back to Earth for a second to grasp how traumatizing it must be for a child to exist in a space of war where violence is unpredictable and a father expects his child to join in on the action. In the next part of the line, Bayard says, “And I was still a child at that moment when Father’s and my horses came over the hill and seemed to cease galloping and to float, hang suspended rather in dimension without time in it…and looked quietly down at the scene beneath rather than before us…” (p. 66, Retreat, in The Unvanquished). This is another instance where Bayard creates a dreamlike state for himself in a time of stress by imagining a distance from it; an almost out of body experience where he gets to look down at the scene unharmed while it happens before him. 

In Raid and Riposte in Tertio, Bayard implements a new protection mechanism by imagining violent action as regular micro household objects. Because Bayard is deprived of his hearing due to the bridge blowing up, he is forced to use his eyes to process what is going on in front of him. He says, “I didn’t hear anything at all. I just sat there in the wagon with a funny buzzing in my ears and a funny taste in my mouth, and watched little toy men and horses and pieces of plank floating along in the air above the water” (p. 106, Raid, in The Unvanquished). Bayard is unable to remove himself from the situation here, so his brain creates a pseudo-playful image of toys, which reminds him of his status as a child and may even remind him of the comforts of home. Faulkner also plays around with scale too. Whenever possible, Bayard conceptualizes objects before him in a traumatic situation as “little” or mentally distances himself from them. By contrast, Bayard regularly describes his Father as “big,” which conveys the way that Bayard/Faulkner uses scale to measure things that are important to him or worth paying attention to. 

Finally, Bayard conceptualizes the worst trauma of all, Granny’s death, as a pile of “thin dry light sticks notched together and braced with cord” (p. 153, Riposte in Tertio, in The Unvanquished). Although Bayard is older now (?), his depersonalization of Granny’s dead body into inanimate sticks shows that he still holds on to the protection mechanisms that he used in his childhood to process emotional stress. This thread of alternative description of trauma and violence that runs through The Unvanquished allows the reader a glimpse into what life must have been like for a young boy in the South during the Civil War who saw far too much far too young. It also makes me wonder about Faulkner’s experiences and how this book may be his way of processing his own trauma and memories from his childhood.

The initial impression of Bayard Sartoris—upon making his acquaintance as the first-person narrator-character guiding the reader through the events he recounts in The Unvanquished—is that he is a bit peculiar…but because of his peculiarity, he is also intriguing. It does not take long for the reader to grasp that Bayard is an adult narrating the story of his coming of age—a time which is all the more significant because his passage into “manhood” coincides alongside the unfolding of the American Civil War. 

Within the assigned reading, Bayard’s narrative spans the end of his childhood years—beginning with him at 12 years old close to turning 13 years old—with its accompanying “child’s make-believe” (95) fantasies and naïveté, and ends with him at 15 years old. To what degree has one of the many casualties from the American Civil War—the way of life in the South—been destroyed? And, how has the disruption of the then-prevailing economic system and social order affect two particular personages from that now defunct order: namely, Bayard’s father (Colonel John Sartoris aka “Father”); and, to a greater extent, Bayard’s maternal grandmother (Rosa Millard aka “Granny”). With the progression of the war always looming in the background yet ever-present, Bayard observes at different junctures of the narrative how it reveals “little”-ness onto Father, and subsequently, onto Granny. 

The shift in how Bayard sees Father in a different light occurs at the beginning of the novel. In a moment of comparison using a flashback within a flashback, Bayard contrasts the appearance of his father from the spring only a few months back—presumably in conjunction with the start and/or early stage of the war—to the moment where he decides to start the story. Bayard notices that his father’s appearance is more bedraggled than in the spring: “…[Father’s] boots dark and dustcaked too, the skirts of his weathered gray coat shades darker than the breast and back and sleeves where the tarnished buttons and the frayed braid of his field officer’s rank glinted dully (9, my italics). This visual description suggests how the Confederate troops are doing in the war (or, at least, how Father’s regiment is doing) that then leads Bayard to hone in on Father’s stature: “Then we could see him good. I mean, Father. He was not big; it was just the things he did, that we knew he was doing, had been doing…that made him seem big to us” (9). Bayard then reiterates his observation a few sentences later: “[Father] was not big, yet somehow he looked even smaller on the horse than off of him, because Jupiter was big and when you thought of Father you thought of him as being big too” (9-10). Bayard shares his observation on the optics of positioning and perspective both in how Father appears “big” with the help of his horse, Jupiter, as well as the encounter between Granny and Father when they greet each other: “[Father] could have stood on the same level with Granny and he would have only needed to bend his head a little for her to kiss him. But he didn’t. He stopped two steps below her, with his head bared…and the fact that Granny had to stoop a little now took nothing from the illusion of height and size which he wore for us at least” (10). This newly realized sense of Father’s smallness recurs when Bayard refers to him simply as “the little man” (13). I believe the “child’s make believe” and “illusion” Bayard has of Father’s seeming grandiosity—held up until he is 12 years old, at least—are in opposition to how he now sees Father. Somehow the war nullifies a version of Father as the Southern gentleman/plantation owner/head of household/patriarch/colonel figure, and Bayard sees a version of him with prescient eyes.

Comparatively, the continual unfolding of war take its toll by taking its time with Granny. As opposed to the opening scene as well as a later scene, Father is an absentee figure to Bayard in the story. Granny, however, is the caretaker/maternal/parental figure who, pathetically, is worn down and wearied as collateral damage by the war. Granny is present throughout the chapters, but, as the war continues, Bayard observes and divulges a steady, gradual decline: “Granny was strong and thin and light as a cat…” (74) to her deterioration into “a lot of little thin dry light sticks” (154). As the narrative and the concomitant war progress, Bayard observes Granny: “looking sicker and sicker” (103), to looking “old and tired. I [Bayard] hadn’t realized how old and little she was” (108); Bayard then goes to say how Granny “looked littler than Cousin Denny” (137)…the pathos of Granny’s deterioration continues: “she looked littler than anybody I could remember, like during the four years she hadn’t got any older or weaker, but just littler and littler…” (143); and, before her ultimate demise, Bayard observes that Granny “was small between us, little; she talked quiet, not loud, not fast and not slow; her voice sounded quiet and still” (146). Coming from the generation before Colonel Sartoris who will have to reconstruct a new life and identity, Granny withers away much like the losing South she embodies. 

For the sake of remaining within the word count of the post, I limited the observations Bayard makes to Father and Granny. However, I am also intrigued by Bayard’s observations of his cousin, Drusilla; and, of course, I am very curious to see how the dynamics will shift between Bayard and Ringo, in light of how the “Riposte in Tertio” chapter ends.