Absalom, Absalom

In Chapter 7, Thomas Sutpen speaks from his perspective for the first time, albeit through recounted stories from Quentin’s grandfather, who was a friend of his. Sutpen’s perspective complicates the characterization that has, up until this point, been largely guided by Miss Rosa and various interpretations of her perspective. By getting closer to Sutpen’s side of the story, Faulkner adds dimension to his "demonic” and evil essence, especially through descriptions of his childhood. It is revealed, for instance, that Sutpen came from nothing and was ostracized from the social stratum that he eventually pursued with ruthless ambition. Quentin sympathizes with him when discussing his adolescence, as he wonders whether Sutpen’s ruthlessness was derived from a sense of exclusion as a child and a subsequent drive to change his life and that of his progeny. In articulating the ambiguities in Sutpen’s character, Quentin humanizes him in a way that hasn’t occurred yet in the narrative, offering explanations and motivations behind his behavior.

It is noteworthy that Wash Jones has a low socioeconomic status in Sutpen’s eyes and the milieu of the plantation South, especially considering that he eventually kills Thomas Sutpen. This suggests that Thomas Sutpen’s demise is cyclical and foreshadowed by his meager beginnings; when Sutpen ascended to the top of the plantation economy, he left behind his past and replaced his previous experiences with ambition and wealth. Nevertheless, he remains tied to his past through his relationship with Wash Jones and the fact that Jones—representing Sutpen’s humble origins—eventually kills him for his affair with Milly.

These chapters echo the speculative nature of previous retellings, especially those that involved Mr. Compson’s guesswork in his construction of the past. Like Mr. Compson previously, Shreve and Quentin speculate on Sutpen’s lineage. When they rewrite their own version of Charles Bon’s adolescence, for instance, they imbue history with their subjective imaginations, constructing a narrative based not on fact but on conjecture. Their imagined narratives contribute to the themes of intergenerational storytelling and memory because their iterations rework the history of the Sutpen family, now multiple generations removed from the original events. In the cyclical nature of storytelling, their imaginations may play a part in the next generation’s retellings, which highlights the dance between imagination and historical truth that pervades the Sutpen narrative. Likewise, this mimics the way regional histories of the Civil War distort the truth, allowing theories like the Lost Cause of the Confederacy to proliferate.

Shreve continues to narrate the story’s conclusion, representing the way the story has passed even further forward, out of the Sutpen family. When Clytie burns down Sutpen’s Hundred—and kills her and Henry Sutpen in the process—she destroys the last heir to the now-lost Sutpen fortune. Crucially, with Henry’s death comes the loss of the final progeny that Thomas Sutpen would have considered legitimate; because he abandoned his part Black children and therefore delegitimized them, Henry’s loss would, to Thomas Sutpen, be the only way to continue the Sutpen family line. As Sutpen’s Hundred goes down in flames with Henry and Clytie inside, the house’s fiery end echoes the destruction of the South after the Civil War. In their efforts to conclude the war, the United States Army burned down significant portions of Southern towns and cities. In this sense, Sutpen’s Hundred’s demise in fire suggests that the house is a microcosm for the Southern region, which surrendered to the Union after the land was devastated by fire.

Finally, the novel ends with Quentin and Shreve discussing Jim Bond, who is the only remaining figure of Sutpen’s family lineage. Bond, who has a cognitive disability and is partially Black, represents the end of Sutpen’s attempted prosperity; from Sutpen’s characterizations and behaviors, it is clear that he would have viewed Jim Bond as an inferior, unworthy heir. As such, the memory of Sutpen and his ambition haunts his ruined family and his sole remaining progeny. The novel closes with Shreve posing a probing question to Quentin, “Why do you hate the South?,” which prompts Quentin to exclaim that he doesn’t. The novel ends with Quentin’s confusion over his relationship to his birthplace, an internal struggle that Faulkner follows more closely when he centers Quentin in the novel The Sound and the Fury.