Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Miscellaneous Absolom Absolom Absolom Absolom Absolom is the story of the downfall of the South. In the novel, Faulkner, despite the fact that he is a southern writer, portrays the south as the cause of it’s own downfall. He condemns the morals and ethics of the South. However, Faulkner also attempts to make a connection between man and time. Time is very important for him and we can see it in his writing style as well as in the characters’ stories. The principal theme of the story is the destruction of the South as the result of corrupt morals and unethical decisions that are made. This is a recurring theme in many of Faulkner’s works. The downfall of the South ties in with the Civil War. The fall of the Coldfield family, one of the most respectable families in town, brought by Thomas Sutpen, a man of mystery who appeared out of nowhere marked by his lack of morals, symbolizes the destruction of the South. The whole foundation of the South is a family. The South was constructed as a family in order to create the “blue-blood” line that the north had, so it is understandable why Faulkner chose that metaphor. Faulkner leads us to believe that South was doomed to failure despite its attempts to recreate the sense of civility and holiness. Behind the illusory mask of religion, matrimony, and family life in general lies lust, incest, fratricide, and slavery. Incest seems to appear more frequently than others. Charles Bon, son of Thomas Sutpen and Eulalia Bon, becomes engaged to his own sister, Judith, only to become a victim of fratricide. Lust and adultery play an important role in adding to the sin list. Sutpen’s first wife is Eulalia Bon. When Sutpen finds out that she was not of Spanish decent as he originally thought, but of African decent he leaves her and his son. His marriage to Ellen Coldfield is based on sexual desire, a desire to have a heir, and family’s respectability. All of those things are present but there is no actual love involved, only selfish desire. Charles Bon, although he is engaged to Judith, has an octoroon mistress. Faulkner’s strong condemnation of the South comes from the Actual story, which Quentin tells in response to Shrieve’s question, “ What is the South like?” As a Southerner, trying to learn northern ideas, Quentin has no choice but to list all the failures of the south from the northern point of view, so he tells us about Thomas Sutpen. Thomas Sutpen stands for all the great qualities of the South and at the same time represents the failures. Sutpen strongly believed that he could build a system of morals in the same way he could build anything else. In doing so he overlooks certain humanitarian values. Sutpen, just like the South, built his entire fortune on the work of others. He never comes to any ethical or moral conclusion about slavery and neither does the South. The slavery issue in the book is also addressed by Toni Morisson in Playing in the Dark. She states that one of the major flaws of the American society is the lack of its identity, which is taken from the enslaved blacks. Similarly, Sutpen’s whole identity is built on his plantation and his “wild Negro slaves”. Careful attention must be also paid to the way Faulkner structured the narration. This is primarily to show the relationship between people and time and get people interested in the story. He gives us the basic outline in the first chapter, but we still don’t get the full picture. The narrator in the first chapter is Rosa Coldfield, who portrays Sutpen as a “demon” or a “djin”. Her hate for the man impedes her from providing us with an objective description. While her view of Sutpen is correct, her reasons for saying that he is evil are a result of her disillusionment. However, she provides us with the example of how destructive it can be to cling to past. She has hated one man for over forty years, clinging to a period in her life when Sutpen appeared. She is also the first narrator because her story can be expanded upon. There are many facts that she is not aware of. She attributes the failure of Bon and Judith marriage to Sutpen’s capricious denial of the marriage. She, however, knows nothing of Bon’s past life or parentage.. In fact, when she refers to “almost fratricide” she is thinking that bon was about to become Henry’s brother-in-law and did not know that the murder was a true fratricide. Mr. Compson, Quentin’s Father, serves as another narrator to add to the story. He is a part of the generation once removed from the story. He is not directly affected by it and, unlike Quentin, does not view it as an integral part of his past and heritage. His refusal to view the story as important or possessing any direct bearing upon the present world represents his failure to learn from the past. Third main narrator is Quentin Compson himself. Although Quentin is not the witness to the actual event, he is able to provide us with the objective view of Thomas Sutpen. Quentin realizes that this is still the same world and the same atmosphere in which Sutpen lived. This story and its implications are a part of his heritage. This relates to Toni Morisson’s view that even thought the world has changed, we must consider the implications of the Africanism in the American literature and realize that the world isn’t that different and that Africanism still exists. Shrieve can be considered as anoter narrator to the story. He is the one who asks Quentin to tell him about the south. Rather than a narrator, Shrieve is a good listener, but he interjects with his own opinions on the story. Through Shrieve, who is not even American but Canadian, we can see the outsider’s point of view. Shreve’s final view of the South is one of pessimism about the possible fate of the south and the modern world. Faulkner has a very pessimistic view of the world in general. While the downfall of the South is a recurring theme, we get an idea that the past is being repeated and that the South is symbolic of America or the world. Sutpen’s story has to be studied so that we can learn from the mistakes of the past and never repeat them. Bibliography: Absolom Absolom -- William Faulker Word Count: 1092
Copyright © 2005 College Term Papers, INC All Rights Reserved.