As she survives slavery, the initial separation of her family and the suicide of her daughter, True Belle functions as a symbol of strength and fortitude, even as her Golden Gray stories have an unhealthy effect on Violet's perceptions of beauty and reality. As she lives in the forest at the community's edge, Wild's phantom-like presence tortures her son Joe Trace, as he makes repeated and unsuccessful attempts to communicate with her. Wild, they openly tell Joseph that they are not his natural parents. Several decades later, Joe Trace holds the Williams family in very high regard and is grateful for their kindness and honesty. Joe Trace's boyhood friend and foster brother.
Victory has a enormous capacity for memory.
In his old age, invokes Victory's memory as he begins the difficult task of coming to terms with his past.