I.                   Sutpen

A.    Downfall? (Worth)

1)      Land

2)      Sons

3)      Self (manipulation)

B.     Nature vs. Nurture

1)      Racist or Product of Environment (Will/Kerry)

2)      Ruthless or determined (Barbre)

C.     End worth the means?...does he really end?

D.    Cares about legacy because of self or because of the way he is viewed?

E.     Compassion?

II.                Cyclical Nature

A.    Supernatural (exists outside of time)

1)      Charles Bon as ghost (Duncan)

2)      Past as ghost (Mike) à South inhabited with ghosts

3)      Sutpen as still living (Jenny)

B.     Past & Future:  as haunting the future

1)      Jim Bon: end and beginning (Rick)

III.             The South

A.    Quentin’s Hatred

B.     Complexity of Morality

C.     Grey area

D.    Sutpen as South? (Emily)

E.     History from different perspectives?

1)      Economy

2)      Slavery (Chelsea)

3)      Had economic need …used Bible to justify slavery (story of Ham)

IV.             Class/Legacy(survival)/Status

V.                Race

A.    Sons

B.     Identity Charles (biracial) à Ryan

C.     Identity of Henry

D.    Identity of Sutpen

E.     Jim Bon

F.      Colorism: Black as tainted/white as pure

VI.             Bias (Ben)

A.    Different Perspectives

B.     Human Nature

C.     What bias brings readers…

D.    Faulkner commentary on human nature

Sutpen's Downfall

For part of the class on Tuesday, we talked about who was to blame for Sutpen’s downfall. According to our two literary excerpts, the two main options were: Sutpen enraged the land which destroyed him, or that his sons were responsible for his fall from grace and ultimate death. I think that each of these theories is a contributing factor, but the main cause of Sutpen’s downfall is Sutpen, himself. His lack of moral character throughout Absalom, Absalom! makes him the ogre that Rosa often refers to him as. This view of Sutpen is supported by William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize speech.
We see that Sutpen’s moral character, or lack thereof, is shaped once he and his family arrive in plantation-rich Virginia (whether his character was shaped by free will or fate is different issue). As he progresses into adulthood, Sutpen’s actions convey his lack of a conscience to the reader; he buys off his Haitian wife, manipulates his sons, etc. So while the land or his sons may have destroyed him, it was Sutpen who provoked them to do so. Faulkner said that man would not exist as he does today with sacrifice, compassion, and pity. Sutpen was and still is a perfect example of this school of thought.

Supten and Slavery

     I feel that Thomas Supten is a character that represents race relations in the South all too well.  His lack of compassion and self-centered ambition demonstrates how the institution of slavery in the south turned some people into property and others into monsters.  Supten saw how the world worked at a very early age, and instead of fighting against the system that threatened his own social standing, he began to work it.  People became tools for Supten and he used them accordingly.  When people were no longer useful to him, Supten tossed them aside.  But, as with slavery, there comes a time when people can no longer be used as tools or bought and sold as possessions.  Supten's past eventually catches up to him, and he begins to see all the wrongs that he had committed throughout his life.  However, it was too late for Supten to correct these wrongs.  It took a violent stance and unnecessary death to correct Supten's past, which he should have never abandoned in the first place.  I think Absalom, Absalom! correctly shows the racial tensions during this time, while also illustrating how these tensions led to the violent eradication of a country, enduring at the expense of its lower class.          

Why Quentin Hates the South

     At the end of the book Shreve asks Quentin “Why do you hate the South?” He replies that he doesn’t hate the South and then continues to repeat it to himself. This repetition seems to indicate that Quentin does indeed hate the South (or at the very least holds some negative feelings against them) and is in denial about it. This is interesting since throughout the story I had thought of Quentin as a fairly unbiased character and if he did have any bias it was in the favor of Sutpen and the South. I think this may be trying to indicate that the general opinion of the audience of this book is the South is bad.
     I think the question of why does Quentin hate the South is an important question to the story especially since he never provides an answer to the question. It strongly relates to the question of why people hate Sutpen. We see his selfishness which eventually turns to his down fall but does this actually make him evil? The story of Sutpen’s child hood seems to indicate that he was just a product of his environment. People don’t know of Sutpen’s childhood and since it is unknown to them they can’t think of it that way. By the time Absalom, Absalom! was written, most of the people who had first handedly experienced the Civil War were no longer alive. A huge portion of the war was no longer understood and the motives have become fuzzy just like Sutpen’s. I feel like Faulkner is trying to indicate that although the South did undeniably do some bad things, they weren’t necessarily as evil as people think.

Ghosts, Spirits, and the Supernatural

Faulkner not only describes the South as inhabited by “ghosts” and “dead people” but goes further and specifically describes living, present characters as ghosts, such as Rosa Coldfield, whom he refers to as “the ghost [who] mused with shadowy docility as if it were the voice which he haunted where a more fortunate one would have had a house.” This description not only addresses Rosa, but also Thomas Sutpen. Faulkner says that he inhabits Rosa’s voice to this day, giving presence and agency to a dead character. He not only describes Rosa as a ghost, but gives a living trait, speech, to a character that is in fact dead. The purpose of supernatural imagery in this passage is to show how strongly the past lingers into the present in the novel. In class we spoke about Faulkner’s commentary on human memory through his writing. Perhaps describing Rosa as a ghost and granting Sutpen so much presence was an attempt to show how strong Rosa’s memory of him is.

            In chapter 1, Faulkner wrote, "his very body was an empty hall echoing with sonorous defeated names; he was not a being, an entity, he was a commonwealth. He was a barracks filled with stubborn, back-looking ghosts..." In this passage, he quite clearly states that Quentin is “not a being.” Quentin’s obsession with the past, his deep and undying fascination with the Sutpen story weighs on him. The ghosts that fill his mind are the characters in the story, whose names “were interchangeable.” This is consistent with the idea that the entire South is “inhabited by ghosts,” because the crimes of the South and the memory associated with it linger, giving the novel a sense of timelessness and underscoring the sense of cyclicality that we discussed in class.

Sutpen's Sons

                From our previous discussions and the reading of Faulkner’s letter, we’ve established that Sutpen represents the South.  This idea gives historical significance to the roles that Sutpen’s sons play in the novel.

                Charles Bon is of mixed race, symbolizing the relationship between black and white people in the South during the time period.  Therefore, it is significant that Sutpen has abandoned and turned his back on Charles Bon, showing that whites in the South had no interest in treating African-Americans humanely.  Henry is white only, however, and his role as Charles Bon’s murderer is to represent the effect racism had on the relationship between whites and blacks.  Henry’s racism, at least in part, leads him to kill Charles Bon, demonstrating that there was no way for his generation to repair the damage done to African-Americans or make any attempt to restore relations between the two groups.

                The fact that Sutpen’s sons carry out the drama is significant as well.  Slavery was an event that spanned across generations and after its end, its effects were still felt for many more.  Sutpen, a first generation slave holder (as far as our knowledge of his family tree goes), passed the sins of the father down to the sons, ensuring that future generations would be worse off.

Jim Bond: The Last Male in the Sutpen Line

Jim Bond is an interesting character that is often overlooked when discussing the broader themes of the novel.  The grand-son of Charles Bon, Jim is described as somewhat of a lowly "idiot", with mixed-blood from his negro mother.  By the end of the novel, Jim Bond is the only remaining male in the Sutpen family line.  After the Clytie set flame to Sutpen’s Hundred, Bond disappeared while the house burned to the ground, taking Clytie and Henry Sutpen with it.

During our last class we discussed the cyclical nature of the novel in how the plot progresses over time.  Faulkner did not simply create Jim Bond’s character just for the sake of doing so, but instead used him in an effort to bring the novel full-circle.  One of the chapters in the book is devoted to describing the life Thomas Sutpen came from in Virginia, showing how he came from a very poor family with a low social status.  After seeing the life of the plantation owner he sets out to build his own empire and achieves his goal until it is brought down by the very corruption it was created with.  One of the only characters who remain at the end of this downfall is Jim Bond, whose wealth and intelligence is most likely equivalent to that of Thomas Sutpen’s parents during his childhood.  Faulkner used Bond’s character to illustrate how Sutpen came from nothing and created a name for himself, only for one man to remain, who is the epitome of everything Sutpen spent his life trying to escape.

sutpen

Sutpen’s obsession with his social stature and legacy are what lead to his decline. Growing up as a child from a father with nothing he realizes that that is not what he wants in his future. This realization causes him to run from his family and start a life on his own using the color of his skin to his advantage. Sutpen’s obsession with having a successful life is what leads him to have a large sum of land in his life. In the first time he succeeds in having this land, he feels as though he ruins it by  marrying and then producing a child to carry on his legacy who is part black.

     After he realizes his first goal can be accomplished again, he takes his skills elsewhere. However, his greed, selfishness, and ignorance follow him and in the end cause him to live an unhappy and corrupt life. His dream of having a perfect family on a perfect plantation is somewhat succeeded with his marriage to Ellen, but Charles Bon acts as a ghost and haunts him to make sure he can not achieve his “perfect” life. His ignorance, pursuit for something “perfect”, and overall lack of care for his family lead to his overall decline. 

Enduring & Prevailing Scratches

We saw in class the other day that William Faulker "declines to accept the end of man", believing that main will prevail. This is one of the biggest themes that he develops throughout Absalom, Absalom! Faulkner seems to be saying that people will continue to live through the stories that are told about them. The idea of "prevailing" comes into play as these stories are passed not only from one person to the next, but from one generation to the next. We see this in the novel as Thomas Sutpen's story is told by Mr. Compson and Rosa to Quentin, and also by Quentin to Shreve. In addition, on page 101, we see that Judith tells her story to Quentin's grandmother in the form of a letter in attempts to make a scratch - "something, something that might make a mark on something that was once".

Finally, on page 151, the murder of Thomas Sutpen by Wash Jones is described, as well as a part of his funeral. In describing the moving of the body to the church, Faulkner chooses to say "so he rode fast toward the church as far as he went, in his homemade coffin, in his regimentals and sabre and embroidered..." instead of something along the lines of "and Judith hired two mules to transport the body to the church...". The way that Faulkner writes this gives the reader a sense that Sutpen is still very much alive and is making all these decisions. In addition, his choice of words like "bolted, turned, tumbled, fetched" in describing the funeral suggest movement rather than stillness (which is what we usually picture when we think of death). Thus, Faulkner uses the description of Sutpen's death to help convey the idea that humans will endure and prevail.

Thomas Stupen

While reading the novel I found it hard to decide my opinion on Thomas Stupen. As we found more and more out about him it only got harder. On one hand he is a horrible racist womanizer with manipulative tendencies and not a care for anyone but himself. But, on the other hand he is a self-made man who went from rags to riches and built a dynasty, which is admirable. He obviously was very driven and although the way he accomplished it seemed shady at first, as we learned more we found out that he had purchased the land and had earned the money from his days in Haiti. Rosa, who colored my opinion of him from the get go was obviously biased because he had hurt her, and it was a wound that she never let heal. Meanwhile we saw instances where he killed (directly or indirectly) two of his children. Not trying to justify anything, but I think he did everything he did out of insecurity and a desire to live up to a standard that he believed was the ideal (that of the white slave owner he saw) but that obviously was flawed. His inability to reach that standard (marrying a woman with black in her skin, having a child that had black blood, having trouble building his empire with the war destroying it, having two daughters and never a son heir) destroyed him and made him more and more willing to do whatever he could in order to reach his ideal. We know how that turned out......and I still can't decide what I think of him - obviously he was flawed, but the things that made him flawed explain a lot about his behavior.

Reconciling Thomas Sutpen

Starting at the very beginning of the novel, the character of Thomas Sutpen is vehemently portrayed as a bigoted, flawed man that cannot ever quench his prideful thirst for societal prominence.  Beginning with Rosa's initial retelling, the reader is led to believe that this man is a "demon".  However, later in the novel the reader is able to get a picture of Sutpen and how his worldy views were developed during his childhood.  In this section, Faulkner depicts a scene in which Sutpen is first made aware of his social standing and his monomaniacal quest for social recognition begins.  Furthermore, the reader gets a look at how Sutpen grew up uneducated and in a time and place in which racism was rampant- something that led me to believe he is not really the "demon" many have portrayed him to be, but rather he is a mere product of his environment that has become wildly obsessed with his pride and flawed attitudes.  That's not to say his views/actions are right, but rather that he came by them naturally.  Due to this, I think it's fair to assess Sutpen's actions as actions that he viewed to be best because of his worldly experience, not because of some inner hatred for African-Americans.  In continuation of this point, it's important to note that he built Sutpen's Hundred side-by-side with his Haitian slaves and during his life he was apt to engage physically with some of them, something that a hateful man would never do.  Therefore, I believe that his actions, such as those regarding Bon and Bon's mother, were not done hatefully, but rather were actions reflecting his prideful nature because accepting them as his family would have hurt his social standing during the time period.

Sutpen's decline

Sutpen’s story throughout the novel is analogous to the decline of the South following the end of the war. Sutpen’s main goal is to make a fortune through any means possible. Sutpen married a woman of African descent and ended up leaving her because he found out that she was not of pure blood. He thinks that abandoning his son is a solution; however Charles Bon turns into a problem for him later in life. Another decision that Sutpen made to have relations with Wash Jones’s granddaughter and abandon her leads to his eventual death at Wash Jones’s hands. Sutpen’s selfish attitude and drive for success ahead of his concerns for his family leads to his ultimate demise. The decline of the South occurred after the Civil War because most of the South’s economy was reliant on slavery and human labor that didn’t exist in great quantities following the conclusion of the war. Sutpen’s investment in his slaves and his infatuation with success at the expense of anyone in his way is similar to the South’s downfall. The South was extremely invested in slavery, a practice that encouraged the vast exploitation, mistreatment, and abuse of human beings.  The South and people like Sutpen who became so reliant on slavery ended up losing virtually everything after the war. 

Understanding Bias in Absalom, Absalom!

Perhaps just as interesting as the plot in Absalom, Absalom! is the way the events are told in the novel, and how those perspective build upon the story. The story of Thomas Sutpen is an interesting tale, one filled with all the makings of a true tragedy. Had Faulkner chosen to write a novel and include all the events of A, A! in chronological order solely through a third person omniscient narrator, would it still manage to gain the literary acclaim? I believe that the true driver of the novel are the characters retelling the story in the 1909 setting. The likes or Rosa, the Compsons, and Shreve allow for different perspectives and interpretations of the story. Through each interpretation, we gain a better understanding of the character telling it. Its easy to focus on the story of the Sutpens and try to analyze characters like Thomas Supten based on their actions retold in the novel, but we need to remember that the story being told may or may not be accurate and is always subject to the bias of the story teller. Rosa telling her side of the story at the beginning presents her as an angry biased women, which somewhat clouds our judgement on the true nature of the characters she describes. From then on, the story is retold from various sources, all which present somewhat differing tales. Trying to piece these tales together to create a true idea of the events involving the Sutpen family is useless if you fail to learn about the biases of the characters narrating.

Class Discussion 3/22/12

CLASS DISCUSSION 3/22/12

• Sutpen
• doesn’t understand why his plan didn’t work
• less of a demon, more of a human
• Wants status
• Has no moral background
• He isn’t set out to ruin people, he has some innocence to him
• Ability to act morally comes out of environment
• Manipulative
• Sutpen vs Bon
• Personal guilt
• Worried about legacy, views of others
• Pride- self perception wouldn’t admit to Charles
• sutpen was a coward
• Sacrificed Bon and Henry
• Is Bon black?
• Evidence is against him lying:
• there had to be a serious reason for him to leave
• His plan would have been properly carried out
• Narrators
• some facts, but you won’t know the true story
• Shreve says maybe a lot
• he doesn’t even believe what he is saying
• Faulkner waited to show us the innocent side of Sutpen
• Can we trust a first person perspective from Sutpen?
• like reading Moby Dick through Ahab’s perspective
• level of bias would give us a good insight into how strong his ambition is
• Allegory of the South
• like the south shouldn’t have sacrificed others, like Sutpen
• Sutpen a “jab” of the American Dream
• nothing to something
• tramples people
• Rise to power is not legitimate, went to Haiti to exploit people of color
• Race
• nature of the times
• Distinction between classes and race
• Clytie is easier to distinguish
• Sutpen is has a hard time distinguishing people with black blood
• Sutpen feels guilty about have 3 illegitimate children
• was it a conflict? or was it a norm?
• Clytie’s mother, Bon’s mother, Millie
• Why did Henry have final say in whether Judith married Bon?
• Henry’s feelings for Judith
• Sutpen directly avoiding that Bon is his son
• Sutpen want to protect Judith from the truth
• Moby-Dick
• p. 186
• Sutpen doesn’t want to hit the slaves, he wants to hit the white aristocracy
• Sutpen wants to strike the balloon that represents white aristocracy
• It’s childish to strike out at the mask and not the means- futile action
• Ahab: why he is after Moby Dick
• if man will strike, strike through the mask; strike through the wall
• Ahab wants to strike the malice behind the mask
• Ahab ignores that his action is futile and tries to take down Moby Dick
• Masks are hiding malice
• is it a good idea to devote your life to a mask?
• Which approach is better?
• Ahab was self-destructive
• direct with ambition
• feigned appearances (hidden harpooning crew)
• Sutpen external intactness
• behind the scenes manipulation
• forced everyone to accept him through bribery
• How does Sutpen directly impose his will?
• Telling Rosa that they should be married

Sutpen's Background

The 7th chapter of Absalom! Absalom! show nearly all of the details about Sutpen's past and clears up a lot of questions.  It introduces Sutpen's childhood, and the factors that may have influenced his persona in Jefferson, as well as cementing the solidity of Sutpen and Compson's friendship, which previously was somewhat obscure.  This section gives an insight to why Sutpen is so concerned with power, and his monomaniacal drive to be successful; moving to Southern Virginia with his drunken father  taught him about the differences between races and classes.  This desire to overcome his lower-class background and opposition to charity are significant characteristics that resonate through Sutpen's adult life and the reasons behind his secrecy, independence, and self-sufficience in Jefferson.

Sutpen's opinions on race become more clear in this chapter of the novel. In previous chapters he interacts with his slaves, running around naked and building his home with them, and even having children with them,  giving the impression that race is not of too great an importance to Sutpen.  However, we see in this chapter that Sutpen actually disowns his wife because she has the slightest amount of negro blood, and therefore disowns his son as well.  I find it strange that Sutpen has such conflicting attitudes, and also why he continues to provide for his daughter, Clytie, who is notably of negro descent.  Why would he allow her to live in his house and interact with his fully white children when he can't even stand to acknowledge Charles Bon as his own son?

It is also interesting to note Sutpen's familiarity with Wash Jones, who up until this chapter seemed to be an irrelevant character in the novel.  Now we find out that Jones is actually the great grandfather to Sutpen's bastard child.  Sutpen's actions with this child are also indicative of his background, and his dismissal of the low-class child as he dismissed his previous wife in Haiti and his son, Charles Bon.

Discussion Outline 3/15

Discussion Outline 3/15 • Structure of the novel o Jenny-Rosa gives unreliable account of Sutpen because of her hatred towards him. In the second, third, and fourth chapters, Mr. Compson gives slightly more neutral account, but still not completely objective.  Combination of both provides a less biased description of the story o Faulkner provides many different narrations to the story to give the novel a small town, southern effect o Ryan-“ I believe Faulkner is purposefully attempting to illustrate that history has two equally important parts: one side being empirical truth and the side the emotional responses” o Emily- His style of writing is almost to try and confuse the reader. Why is Faulkner doing this? • Varying viewpoints of Thomas Sutpen o Rick-Mr. Compson’s narrative of Sutpen gives him more human qualities  Desirable qualities do exist to some extent • Very successful capitalist, built himself up from nothing in a town where he know no one  Does he create any bias? How accurate is his information? • He claims the reason Rosa marries Sutpen is to protect Judith. Is it believable that she would do this? • How does he know so much about Henry and Bon’s relationship? Is it mostly speculation and rumor and if so, does this damage his credibility?  Does he try to discredit Rosa?  He repeats certain words and phrases a lot. Jenny mentions he calls Ellen a butterfly on multiple occasions. He also calls Sutpen the Ogre of her [Rosa’s] youth and “a foe who did not even know that it was embattled” and he says “he had corrupted Ellen” multiple times. • Jenny says that butterflies are after considered a positive symbol of change. Does this make sense? Could it also represent fragility? • Why does he say that Sutpen corrupted Ellen? Does it put Sutpen in a negative light? • Foreshadowing o Clytemnestra-wife of Agamemnon who led Greeks in defeat of Trojans in Trojan War (killed her husband and Cassandra, the princess of Troy)  Do you believe Clytemnestra in Absalom, Absalom! will serve the same purpose?  Who could serve as her husband? Cassandra? o Absalom-in the Bible, Absalom is the third son of David. Rebels against his father and is killed  We already know of the fratricide of Bon  Why would the name be repeated as the novel’s title? • Incest and homosexual undertones o Henry’s love for Bon and Judith  “Yes, he loved Bon, who seduced him as surely as it seduced Judith…” pg 76  Pg 77-refers to his more than brotherly love for Judith o Mr. Compson suggests that if Bon married Judith, Henry would be fulfilling two desires o Do you believe that this profound love for Judith caused Henry to kill Bon? • Mystery Behind Sutpen o Mike says he embodies the core traits of a Gothic villain.  Is Sutpen a villain or are there other reasons for the mystery surrounding him?  Do Sutpen’s intentions even matter? If he made Ellen and Rosa’s lives miserable, does it matter if he had good intentions? o If Sutpen represents the South during the civil war, what does the mystery say? Is the South’s version of the civil war lost in history?

Henry's Struggle

Chapter 8 sheds new light on the decision that Henry had to make to kill Charles Bon. In previous chapters, we only saw Bon as a close friend of Henry's, but the fact that Bon turns out to be Henry's older brother adds a new element to Henry's difficult choice. It is interesting how the story develops so that it becomes more and more wrong, in Henry's eyes, for Bon to marry Judith. At first we believe that Henry killed Bon simply because of his one-eighth black mistress and son. Then we find out that Bon is Henry's older brother, and therefore Henry would have to knowingly allow incest if he were to allow Bon to marry Judith. He struggles with this knowledge throughout chapter 8, and finally decides that he will allow the marriage. Finally his father tells him that Bon himself is one-eighth black, and it is interesting that this is the factor that finally makes Henry decide to kill Bon rather than to allow him to marry Judith. "So it's the miscegenation, not the incest, which you can't bear," says Bon to Henry. It seems to me that Faulkner is making a strong statement with this scene. The bigotry of southern culture during the Civil War allows incest as a more acceptable alternative than allowing a black man to sleep with a white woman.

Racial and Socioeconomic Divides in Sutpen's Early Life

I want to start off this post by saying that I by no means intend for this post to be overtly controversial; however, I felt as if race played an important part in Chapter 7 and needed to be discussed. Race and class in Absalom, Absalom! are prominent themes in the book, but not predictably so.

In chapter 7, Quentin and Shreve imagine what Sutpen thought about race growing up, which is also filled in by stories that Quentin has heard from General Compton and it raises some interesting points. Faulkner notes that Sutpen probably learned about race subconsciously, that there was a different way of defining a man in terms of race instead of in terms of general worth. He describes as Sutpen learns the difference between white people who have things and those that don’t, and he also writes about when Sutpen begins to realize that even as a very poor white person he is considered above non-whites by society. I think this is best described on page 186 when Sutpen tells General Compton, “(you knew that you could hit them, he told Grandfather, and they would not hit back or resist.)”

            However, what is more important in the novel is Sutpen’s perception of class. It is when he is fourteen that he is yelled at by a black servant at the plantation his family is working on, and is appalled and embarrassed that he is not even allowed to enter the front door. This is a pivotal moment in Sutpen’s life because it is when he decides to run away and create a name for himself; his goal is to be seen as an equal to those that have plantations. It is interesting to me how fine a between being white, which is a clear advantage at this point in US history, and yet he is so poor that he cannot go in through the front door, he must use the back door like he is help in a white man’s house.

Validity of Speaker

Throughout chapter 8 we have the speculations of Quentin and Shreve.  Faulkner uses maybe several times throughout the telling of their ideas about what transpires with the family.  We see the use of maybe three times on page 278.  I can’t help but wonder what exactly the intention of the author was in doing this.  He was the one making up the story yet he still makes the reader question him or herself about what really happened.  This theme of not trusting the speaker is a common theme that has been recurring throughout the novel.  We have been shown not to trust the stories of Rosa because she is biased, but when Quentin and Shreve make these misjudgments, it creates a different sense of mistrust that we didn’t have with the other characters that saw the events firsthand.  I think it is worth considering how much Quentin actually saw when he and Rosa visited the Sutpen hundred and how that played a role in his judgment about the facts which he has yet to reveal to the reader.  This leads me to my second point that through the use of maybe so many times in chapter 8 that we must speculate as to whether we can believe any of this story because, while the facts laid out in the end of the book create the story line, Absalom! Absalom! fails to give us the point of view of the person we need to hear from the most, Thomas Sutpen.  These holes in the story makes me as the reader question how much any of the story recounts have validity because of how smeared they are because we encounter no narrator who isn’t biased.

Lessons Learned from Supten

I found a new theme of the novel begin to emerge as the reader is exposed to the point of view of Charles Sutpen for the first time in chapter seven. Experiencing the description of Sutpen as a child rejected and alone, transforms the book’s previous villain to a much more relatable character. This description leads me to believe that Faulker was trying to make a statement about the importance of viewpoint in this piece. Although characters like Rosa believe the matter to be plain black and white, further exploration into a complicated matter will often lead to a much more complicated solution. Every story has different sides, and refusing to listen to and embrace multiple versions may lead an outsider to a false interpretation of the actual passing of events.

I think another lesson to be gained from the new exposure to Supten’s life is that good intention does not necessarily yield the desired results. Although Supten was trying to stop his daughter from forming an union marred by incest, he ended up destroying his entire family and tarnishing his already shady reputation. Overall, it is interesting to hear a validation for the acts which at the beginning of the novel seemed so mysterious and incomprehensible.  

Sutpen and Determinism

These chapters seem to focus on the idea of determinism, the ideology that a person is determined by their environment.  By getting background on Sutpen and Bon, there is also a tendency for readers to become somewhat sympathetic or understanding regarding those characters.  Sutpen’s background was especially interesting, as it seemed that many social constructs had a huge effect on his life.  At a young age, Sutpen was taught about class and racial differences.  He knew what it meant to be in power and what it meant to not have anything at all.  He saw the power there was in ownership.  This gave a lot of insight into why Sutpen was so determined to build Sutpen’s One Hundred.  He knew how to work with his hands and how to make something out of nothing, and he was determined to do so.  We also found out that Bon is Sutpen’s son which explains his interest in Bon and his trip to New Orleans.  We also learn about the effect that learning about race and class had on him when he realizes that his wife, and the mother of Charles Bon, was partially Black.  Leaving them was the onset to building Sutpen’s one hundred.  Here, we are given the most humane story about Sutpen.  Instead of his life coming across as supernatural or as folklore, he comes across as a person.  Although Sutpen is not necessarily a likeable human being, he is a person with feelings and emotions.  He leaves a kind of destruction wherever he goes, but he also is the builder of most of the destruction.