Armstid

A local farmer, Armstid provides shelter for the Bundren family after their disastrous river crossing. He makes cryptic comments on the treatment of Cash's injury, Anse's trade for a mule team, and the rotting smell coming from the casket.

Addie Bundren

The family matriarch, Addie is Anse's wife and the mother of the Bundren children. She dies early in the book from a lingering illness, and the action of the novel revolves around transporting her body to her family's burial ground. As a young woman, Addie was a schoolteacher in Jefferson. To escape this life, she married Anse, a local farmer. She was happy when she gave birth to her eldest son Cash; but with her next child, Darl, she began to resent her situation.

Years into her marriage, she had a passionate affair with the Reverend Whitfield. During the affair, she became pregnant with Jewel, her favorite...