Several of Styron's minor characters represent types more than they do individuals, although Styron does give them individual characteristics which humanize them. Lt. Col. Timothy ("Happy") Halloran is a professional Marine who sports a handlebar mustache, a nonsafety razor, a swagger, and a style that Paul Whitehurst can only envy. Paul realizes that Halloran is a political neanderthal and that he tells rambling, pointless tales about his life in the Marines, but he still remains infatuated by his virile presence. The Dabneys are the Whitehursts' social inferiors, "poor white trash" who cuss and fulminate, keep a slovenly house, make illicit whiskey, and have no desire to aspire to bourgeois gentility.

And yet when Shadrach, the ancient slave, returns to Dabney's land to die, Dabney takes him in and sees to it that Shadrach's meager hopes are fulfilled.

Likewise an autocrat like Mr. Quigley, who runs the local store...