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.