Absalom, Absalom

The fourth chapter further explores how deeply certain narrators can misinterpret and reimagine past events. As Mr. Compson explains the relationships between Judith, Henry, and Charles Bon, he confidently offers incorrect explanations for certain key events. He tells very detailed and elaborate stories which, he says, explain why Henry murdered Charles once he made his intentions to marry Judith clear. Mr. Compson believes that Henry couldn’t move past the fact that Charles had an existing wife who is part Black: “Henry waited four years, holding the three of them in that abeyance, that durance, waiting, hoping, for Bon to renounce the woman and dissolve the marriage…” (94). Yet, as the narrative later reveals, Mr. Compson’s interpretation of the conflicts between Henry, Bon, and Judith are rooted in assumptions and gossip. As a result, Mr. Compson’s narrative recreates the sense of ignorance and confusion experienced by characters in the county, emphasizing a reliance on oral gossip and incomplete information. In the next two chapters, Mr. Compson’s theories are revealed to be more speculation than truth, despite the aura of reality and detail with which he imbues them. His assumptions add layers to the complexity of Multigenerational Storytelling and Memory. As the tale parallels alternative histories about the South and Confederacy, the inaccuracies highlight how unreliable recollections and unsubstantiated stories can be.

In Chapter 5, Rosa’s narration reveals more backstory and explanation surrounding her perception of Thomas Sutpen as an evil force upon her and her family. This chapter offers key exposition into Rosa’s characterization from Chapter 1 by detailing the circumstances of her very brief engagement to Thomas Sutpen before the latter insulted her beyond repair. Her descriptions of Sutpen’s treatment of her and her subsequent choice to leave the plantation and live in isolation show the extent of the damage done by Sutpen on Rosa’s life. Rosa’s recount of the public mockery following her brief engagement—“Rosie Coldfield, lose him, weep him; caught a man but couldn’t keep him” (136)—contributes to the idea of the difficulties experienced by women at this time, as they experience ostracization and ridicule for gendered discourses that they can’t fully control.

At the same time, these chapters illustrate Sutpen’s personal decline, as well as the decline of his plantation. Faulkner describes a scene of ruin upon Sutpen’s return from war, in which his children and descendants have vanished, his fields are full of weeds, and the people he had enslaved are gone. As Sutpen is reduced to counting nickels and pennies, he drinks to cope with the demise of his land and prosperity. His affair with Milly—Walsh Jones’s 15-year-old granddaughter—is a last attempt to regain his masculinity and power from the pre-Civil War years, during which he saw marriage and heirs as pivotal to generational success. This final attempt to reclaim his lost way of life will, however, lead to his death at the hands of Wash Jones, which suggests a complete obliteration of the Southern antebellum environment and the behavior of Thomas Sutpen to restore it.

The introduction of Charles Etienne also contributes to an overarching sense of Thomas Sutpen’s destruction and his lineages. Charles Etienne, like his father Charles Bon, is part Black, and he must reckon with his sense of self as a man with a diverse racial background in a Southern environment that is still entrenched in racism and racist violence. Charles Etienne’s own self-hatred is a commentary on the twisted legacy of slavery and racial prejudice. The narrative acquires a sharper focus on the complexities of racial identity, raising questions about the consequences of a system that pits individuals against their own heritage.

In the next two chapters, the atmosphere of an impending, potentially tragic revelation builds as Miss Rosa guides Quentin toward Sutpen’s Hundred. The manor, laden with historical significance, looms as a symbol of the Sutpen legacy, perpetuating a narrative that has assumed mythical proportions. This moment marks a critical juncture, suggesting that the story, far from concluding, awaits Quentin and Rosa within the confines of the plantation.

Chapter 6 is narratively complex. It moves between the perspectives of Quentin, Shreve, and a third-person omniscient narrator. This shift in perspective, to two young men of a new generation at Harvard University, represents yet another iteration of the story of the Sutpen family. As Quentin and Shreve take the story into the 20th century, they imbue it with their own opinions and surmises, showing that the stories from the violent previous century will both live on and also continually reinvent themselves as their narrators (and their narrators’ worldviews) change and modernize.