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Colonel Sartoris is the mayor of Jefferson in 1894 who exempts Emily from paying her taxes, from the date of her father’s death onward “in perpetuity.” An old Confederate general, his character represents tradition; of his agreement with Emily, and the fabrication he invents in order to justify it so as not to hurt Emily’s pride, the narrator states “[o]nly a man of Colonel Sartoris’ generation and thought could have invented it.” The fact that he takes pity on Emily following the hardships she has endured suggests some generosity on his part, but it also highlights the infantilizing way he, and others of his generation, treat her.
Throughout the narrative, Colonel Sartoris is associated with all that is old and outdated. In the same sentence in which the narrator states the Colonel remitted Emily’s taxes, they mention he once created an edict demanding that Black women never be seen in public without an apron on, suggesting that Colonel Sartoris continues to uphold racist and sexist ideals of the past and is emblematic of antiquated institutions. He stands in contrast to modernity, exemplified by new generations of town leaders who come along and attempt to break the agreement by persuading Emily to pay her taxes. Colonel Sartoris serves as a sort of marker for the passage of time—the women who learn the art of china-painting from Emily are referred to as “the daughters and grand-daughters of Colonel Sartoris’ contemporaries,” making two things clear: the point in time during which this part of the story occurs, and the fact that Colonel Sartoris and all the he stands for will soon be replaced as time inexorably moves forward.
