Bayard
Bayard is the novel's narrator and protagonist. He is the son of Colonel Sartoris, the owner of the plantation on which the story begins, and is best friends with Ringo, a slave who is his age and who has been raised more or less like a brother to him. Compared to the other characters, Bayard spends much of the novel being fairly passive, but in the end he makes a choice that serves to reverse the social expectation of violence and revenge.
Ringo
Ringo is one of the slaves on the Sartoris family plantation. He is the same age as Bayard and the two spend their childhood's together raised almost like brother. He even calls Bayard's grandmother "Granny" and accompanies them on their travels.
Granny/Rosa Millard
Granny is Bayard's grandmother. She is powerful and assertive and, while Colonel Sartoris is away, is responsible for much of the action that takes place in the novel.
Colonel Sartoris
Colonel Sartoris is Bayard's father and serves as a soldier in the Confederate army. He is often away and Bayard and Ringo regard him with a certain level of awe.
Drusilla
Drusilla is Bayard's cousin, who serves as a soldier in the war and acts against the expected conventions of her gender. She has short hair and wears pants and does many of the things that the men do. After the war, she marries Colonel Sartoris after being pressured by the women around her who want her to conform to gender roles.
Louvinia
One of the Sartoris family's slaves
Grumby
The former Confederate soldier who kills Granny
