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Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Absalom, Absalom!, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Storytelling, Perspective, and Truth
The South
The Limits of Ambition
Social Taboos, Racism, and Inherited Trauma
Summary
Analysis
It’s still not dark enough for Quentin to go to Miss Rosa’s—not as dark as she’d prefer it, anyway. Quentin imagines her waiting for him in her dark, stuffy house, dressed all in black, a sequined black bonnet on her head. She’ll have her parasol with her when she emerges from the house to greet him, he predicts. Mr. Compson appears just then, interrupting Quentin’s daydreaming to bring him a letter. He suggests that Quentin go inside to read it, but Quentin counters that it’s still light enough for him to read it outside.
The narration goes into great detail in its description of Quentin’s image of Miss Rosa. The sequined black bonnet and parasol evoke mourning clothing, and they also seem akin to clothing women would have worn in the pre-war era—the scene evokes images of women exiting church dressed in full skirts that Mr. Compson spoke of earlier in the novel. Reading the entire novel as an allegory for the South, then, Miss Rosa’s attire reflects her mourning of the pre-war culture that no longer exists—a culture she has been cursed to outlive and has tried in vain to keep alive. The letter Mr. Compson offers to Quentin is an important development in the narrative—it’s the first piece of solid, physical evidence that Quentin has received that is closer to the truth of the Sutpen story. Up to this point, he’s had to rely on hearsay alone.
Themes
Mr. Compson, still holding the letter, sits with Quentin on the veranda. Continuing his story about the Sutpen saga, he muses that Henry gave up his birthright and financial security out of love for Bon. Bon was “at least an intending bigamist even if not an out and out blackguard,” and Judith would find a picture of Bon’s wife and child on his dead body. And out of that love, Henry chose to believe that what his father said about Bon wasn’t true. Even if in his heart he knew his father couldn’t have made up what he said about “the woman and the child,” he chose to continue deluding himself about Bon as the two of them rode off together Christmas morning. Could he really have expected to find anything other than a confirmation of his father’s accusation in New Orleans? Henry must have known, Mr. Compson insists, “that he was doomed and destined to kill.”
This passage somewhat calls into question the truthfulness of Mr. Compson’s version of the Sutpen story. He’s making fairly bold claims about what Henry learned about Bon and how—indeed, even if—that knowledge motivated his decision to murder Bon. Readers should remember that neither Mr. Compson nor his father witnessed these events and are merely speculating about what they think may have happened between Bon, Henry, and Sutpen. This passage also brings back the language of curses and fate, with Mr. Compson’s speculation that Henry must have known “that he was doomed and destined to kill.” This language indicates that something in Sutpen’s behavior has “doomed” future generations of Sutpens to misery, violence, and suffering. Read as an allegory for the South, then, Henry’s fear reflects the disarray and trauma that the South’s future generations inherit from its history of slavery and its failure to acknowledge or atone for its practice of slavery.
Themes
It was Henry, Mr. Compson explains, who held all the cards. Judith didn’t know what happened in the study on Christmas Eve and wouldn’t know until they brought in Bon’s body and she saw the photograph of the woman and child. All she had to go on was the letter that Henry left for her to find after he and Bon had left, in which he forbade the marriage. Nor did Henry tell Bon what Sutpen had told Henry about Bon. And anyway, Henry wouldn’t need to tell Bon that Sutpen had been to New Orleans and knew of Bon’s secret—Sutpen’s knowledge would have been clear to Bon by Sutpen’s reaction to the announcement of his intention to marry Judith.
Mr. Compson seems to insinuate that the reason Henry killed Bon was that he found out Bon had another family—the woman and child in the photograph—and was attempting to commit bigamy by marrying Judith. Henry would’ve condemned this for the sake of Judith, but also out of respect for the Sutpen name in a broader sense. Mr. Compson also suggests that Sutpen’s business in New Orleans involved discovering the existence of Bon’s supposed other family. Of course, this doesn’t answer the question of how Sutpen would have known to travel to New Orleans to dig up dirt about Bon—something isn’t quite lining up here, and Mr. Compson’s story isn’t filling in the blanks as adequately as he seems to wish it would.
Themes
Bon, like Sutpen, arrived seemingly without a past, and he mystifies Mr. Compson. Though he easily charmed Judith and Henry, he immediately became “completely enigmatic” and “withdrawn” the moment he realized Sutpen would try to prohibit Bon’s marriage to Judith.
The idea of building a life from nothing—from making a new name for oneself outside of history—is a recurring theme throughout the novel. Given Sutpen’s and Bon’s demises, Faulkner seems to suggest that this isn’t possible: nobody can exist outside of history or the broader human story. Note also how Mr. Compson’s portrayal of Bon is far less sympathetic or romantic than Rosa’s—he seems convinced that Bon was concealing something nefarious from the Sutpen clan, and he is suspicious rather than admiring and curious about Bon’s “enigmatic” and “withdrawn” character.
Themes
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Bon loved Judith—though, Mr. Compson adds, Sutpen would learn that Bon had professed his love to others before Judith. Mr. Compson explains that Judith kept the letter he is now holding and gave it to Quentin’s grandmother after Bon’s death. She did this after destroying the other letters he sent her (though he admits that it’s unclear whether Judith was the one who destroyed these other letters). Judith would’ve destroyed the letters after she discovered “in Bon’s coat the picture of the octoroon mistress and the little boy.” Judith must have loved Bon as much as Henry did—in fact, it’s unclear to Mr. Compson which sibling loved Bon more. Mr. Compson suggests that Bon “seduced [Henry] as surely as he seduced Judith,” impressing Henry and all the other “planters’ sons” whom Bon allowed in his inner circle.
Mr. Compson is portraying Bon as an opportunist. He’s suggesting that Bon isn’t marrying Judith because he loves her—rather, he is marrying her to accomplish some ends, though it’s not entirely clear what these ends are. He believes that Judith and Henry’s love of Bon was the result of Bon manipulating them rather than genuine love. Interestingly, this is similar to Miss Rosa’s sense of Sutpen: she believes he married into the Coldfield family to achieve respectability, not out of love for Ellen. Mr. Compson believes the same is true of Bon, yet he doesn’t acknowledge the similarities between this portrayal of Bon and Sutpen’s arc—this reveals his bias toward Sutpen and reminds readers not to take his version of events as objective fact. Finally, the strong connection between Bon and the Sutpen siblings is curiously intense, and it hints at a deeper connection among the three characters than the narrative has yet to reveal. Finally, note the novel’s use of the word “octoroon,” an outdated and derogatory term used to describe a person of one-eighth Black ancestry.
Themes
Henry, Mr. Compson declares, was “the provincial, the clown almost,” who got carried away and acted irrationally. Mr. Compson ponders whether Henry’s protective attitude toward Judith’s virginity may in fact have been “the pure and perfect incest,” in which Henry “destroy[ed]” Judith’s virginity by killing the brother-in-law.
This passage features more hints at possible incest (or at least incestuous feelings) between Judith and Bon. Mr. Compson, in somewhat surreal, cryptic, and psychoanalytic terms, suggests that Henry’s act of killing Bon may have stemmed from Henry’s jealous desire to eliminate Bon as a rival for Judith’s affections. It’s unclear whether Mr. Compson’s speculations have any basis in fact or if he’s merely trying to impose some cohesive narrative over the tragedy of the Sutpen family to make sense of things he doesn’t fully understand. The hint at incest also resonates with the Biblical story which the novel’s title and general plot allude to: in 2 Samuel, King David’s son Absalom kills David’s other son, Amnon, for raping Tamar, Amnon’s half-sister and Absalom’s sister.
Themes
Mr. Compson suggests that Henry witnessed the entirety of Judith and Bon’s courtship, for there was no time or opportunity for them to have been alone together during Bon’s few visits to Sutpen’s Hundred. In total, Bon and Judith saw each other just 12 days. Despite this, Henry found it necessary to kill Bon to prevent the marriage. Mr. Compson expresses skepticism that Judith could’ve been so intent on marrying Bon despite not knowing him that well. But of course, he laments, “they don’t explain it and we are not supposed to know.” In the equation of Judith, Bon, Henry, and Sutpen, there’s something that doesn’t add up.
Mr. Compson here challenges the notion that Judith and Bon had some grand, fairy-tale romance, explaining how the couple only saw each other for 12 days total. Mr. Compson does this to further his argument that Bon had nefarious ulterior motives for pursuing Judith: he’s doubting that Bon and Judith could have genuinely fallen in love in such a short period of time and without spending much (if any) time alone together. As such, something about the romance was feigned—and in Mr. Compson’s version of things, that feigned love has to do with Bon wanting something from the Sutpens.
Themes
Mr. Compson continues his story. After Henry and Bon leave that Christmas morning, Judith doesn’t see Bon for four years. And during that time, Bon doesn’t send Judith a single letter—Henry forbids it. Yet when he finally does send her a letter saying it’s time for them to marry, Judith and Clytie get straight to work making a wedding dress. It’s at this point that Sutpen sees the real threat the marriage poses to “his old hardships and ambition,” a threat legitimate enough for him to travel all the way to New Orleans to prove. It’s unclear how long Sutpen had been waiting to go to New Orleans to confirm what he expected to find there.
Mr. Compson’s theory—that it was learning of Bon’s mistress and child in New Orleans that compelled Henry to prohibit Bon’s marriage to Judith—still holds up. If Sutpen’s goal is to achieve and maintain respectability in the pre-war South, then marrying off his daughter to a bigamist would certainly pose a threat to that ambition. Still, it’s odd that Sutpen seems to know that there’s something off about Bon’s past waiting in New Orleans for him to confirm. Sutpen seems to know more about Bon and his history than he is letting on—and more than Mr. Compson (at least in his telling of the story) seems to realize.
Themes
In June, after school wraps up, Bon and Henry arrive at Sutpen’s Hundred, planning to spend a couple days there before continuing on to Bon’s home in New Orleans—where Sutpen has already gone, though nobody knows that’s where he went. (Mr. Compson speculates that Bon must have realized that this is his chance to woo Judith.) Of course, by this point Sutpen must have already found out about “the octoroon mistress and the child,” but nobody could’ve known about that. In Mr. Compson’s telling of the story, Ellen goes out of her way to bring Judith and Bon together to encourage the romance. The fact that their engagement survives Bon’s absence suggests that their romance is real, Mr. Compson allows.
Again, this passage reinforces how much is missing from Mr. Compson’s version of the story. Sutpen seems to have information about Bon and his past that Mr. Compson lacks. Also, readers should be aware of when the events this passage describes are taking place—the narrative jumps around in time, so it’s easy to get lost in the timeline. Henry and Bon’s visit to Sutpen’s Hundred takes place between their first Christmas visit and the second Christmas visit, when Sutpen and Henry have their mysterious argument (which, in Mr. Compson’s telling, is when Sutpen tells Henry about Bon’s other family in New Orleans).
Themes
Mr. Compson speculates that if Henry had only gone with Bon to New Orleans instead of waiting until the next summer to join him, perhaps Bon wouldn’t have had to die—maybe he’d have reacted as Sutpen had to the revelation of Bon’s other family. But Henry does return, and Sutpen does too, and then the events of the following Christmas happen the way they happen.
Mr. Compson portrays Bon’s death as inevitable. Though he and Miss Rosa have drastically different perspectives on the Sutpen saga (Rosa detests Sutpen, while Mr. Compson is more sympathetic to Sutpen’s plight), both regard the violence and misery that surrounded him as fated, somehow.
Themes
In Mr. Compson’s telling, after that Christmas, Judith starts sending letters to Bon, and Henry reads them “without jealousy,” and in the process he becomes “the body which was to become his sister’s lover.” Sutpen, meanwhile, keeps what he learned in New Orleans to himself—perhaps hoping that when Bon finds out that Sutpen has learned his secret, he’ll break things off with Judith. But Bon returns the next year, and Henry and Bon both write Judith letters once school starts back up.
Faulkner further hints at Henry’s incestuous feelings for Judith, suggesting that his eager investment in Bon’s courtship of Judith stems from his unconscious (or perhaps somewhat conscious) desire to be his sister’s lover himself. Sutpen’s choice to keep the information he’s learned about Bon (which Mr. Compson assumes is about Bon’s family in New Orleans) to himself seems to be part of a bigger plan. As always, he structures his actions—and his interactions with others—around his ambition. He has some motive for wanting Bon to break things off with Judith of his own (coerced) volition, and it has something to do with respectability.
Themes
The Christmas of 1860, Bon and Henry return to Sutpen’s Hundred. By this point, Ellen has already told everyone in town about Judith and Bon’s engagement. Then the outburst on Christmas Eve happens, and Henry and Bon leave for New Orleans the next day. Henry repudiates his family and leaves Sutpen’s Hundred, though he doesn’t have to—he leaves out of love for Bon. Mr. Compson guesses that Bon would’ve asked Henry what Sutpen said to cause the fight (though, Mr. Compson speculates, Bon already knows what Sutpen discovered in New Orleans). Mr. Compson thinks Henry accompanied Bon to New Orleans to prove that whatever Sutpen had told Henry about Bon was true.
The narrative jumps forward several months to the Christmas after Sutpen has confirmed whatever he’s concerned about in Bon’s life in New Orleans—and confirmed how that life would threaten Sutpen’s hard-won respect. Henry’s choice to remain loyal to Bon and reject the Sutpens could suggest that he values his friendship with Bon more than Sutpen’s notion of respectability. Of course, Mr. Compson suggests that the truth is more complicated—he thinks that Henry left in order to see for himself that whatever information Sutpen disclosed to him about Bon is true, suggesting that Henry could yet choose to reject Bon to uphold the Sutpen family’s honor (which, given Henry’s later murder of Bon, seems to be what happens).
Themes
Mr. Compson imagines how Bon would have come clean to Henry—all the “calculation” that went into it. It wouldn’t be the fact of Bon’s mistress and child being Black that bothered Henry—it would have been “the ceremony” that bothered Henry, “the countryman.” And Bon, in all his shrewdness, would be well aware of this. At that point, Henry would have to choose: he could honor “his entire upbringing and thinking,” which had taught him that women were either “ladies or whores or slaves,” or he could be loyal to Bon, his good friend and mentor.
Mr. Compson frames Henry’s choice (to side with Bon or to side with Sutpen) as a choice between betraying or honoring the Southern code of honor with which he was raised—a code which would condemn Bon’s bigamy, especially if, as Mr. Compson here suggests, Bon’s family in New Orleans has Black ancestry. Mr. Compson’s bias against Bon is especially clear in this passage. He portrays Henry as a naive “countryman” who knows little of the world outside Mississippi. Meanwhile, he depicts Bon as manipulating Henry, taking advantage of his unquestioning loyalty and general naivete about the world.
Themes
Mr. Compson imagines Bon leading Henry to a brothel in New Orleans, scandalizing Henry, and Bon trying gently to defend his marrying a woman Henry deems a “whore.” In Mr. Compson’s telling, Bon reminds Henry that the woman and child are Black (Bon uses a racial slur to describe them). meaning Bon’s relationship with the woman can’t possibly be considered a binding marriage. Henry, of Sutpen’s Hundred, should know this. Mr. Compson then imagines Henry still failing to accept Bon’s attempt to commit bigamy.
Mr. Compson continues to portray Bon in a negative light; not only is he scheming to commit bigamy, but he seems content to abandon his child and the child’s mother. Bon’s claim that his marriage to the Black woman isn’t binding reflects laws of the time, which would have viewed interracial marriage as illegitimate. Though Mr. Compson adamantly tries to portray Bon in a negative light while extending sympathy to Sutpen, he fails to recognize the men’s similarities: both revere the code of honor that governs life in the pre-war South (in this case, Bon upholds the racist laws that make his relationship with the mother of his child illegitimate).
Themes
What happened four years later, Mr. Compson argues, should have happened the day Bon brought Henry to the brothel. But it doesn’t happen that way. Instead, Henry waits four years for Bon to renounce the woman and child and dissolve the marriage—all the while knowing that the relationship isn’t a marriage and that Bon won’t reject the woman and child.
The future event that Mr. Compson is alluding to here is Henry’s betrayal of Bon—he seems to suggest that Henry should have killed (or at least rejected) Bon now rather than giving Bon four more years to decide between the Black woman and Judith. Again, he’s portraying Bon’s death as inevitable rather than the consequence of Henry’s deliberate choice to kill Bon (and whatever meddling Sutpen did behind the scenes to compel Henry to do so).
Themes
Mr. Compson’s story continues. That spring, Bon and Henry return north to Mississippi. Bull Run has already been fought, and they join a company that some of their peers have organized at college. Henry (in Mr. Compson’s telling) writes to Judith to update her about his and Bon’s situation. Meanwhile, Henry doesn’t let Bon out of his sight, fearing that Bon will marry Judith, which will force Henry to acknowledge that he is in fact happy to be betrayed by Bon. For to Bon and Henry both, Judith “[is] just the blank shape” onto which both project “what each conceive[s] the other to believe him to be—the man and the youth, seducer and seduced, […] victimised in turn each by the other.”
“Bull Run” refers to the First Battle of Bull Run, the first major battle of the Civil War, which took place on July 21, 1861, in Virginia. Referencing this battle orients the reader to when the events of the main story are taking place. It also establishes a parallel between the gradual unraveling of Sutpen’s dynasty and the gradual unraveling of the pre-war South, with the first major battle of the Civil War serving as the catalyst that initiates the South’s gradual demise, and Henry’s choice to remain loyal to Bon over his own family kicking off Sutpen’s demise.
Themes
In the present, Judith remains a mystery to Mr. Compson: it’s not as though Bon tried to “corrupt her to unchastity,” Mr. Compson argues. And she couldn’t have known the truth about why Sutpen prohibited the marriage. Had she known about the other woman, she might have solved the problem by murdering her.
Perhaps ironically, Mr. Compson fails to consider how unreliable his version of this story is—he seems to believe he’s privy to information about Bon that Judith never discovered due to his father’s friendship with Sutpen. Yet Judith has the benefit of having lived this story, even if her perspective is limited. Mr. Compson knows everything he knows through hearsay.
Themes
Mr. Compson continues his story. Henry and Bon go off to war, and Bon is made lieutenant (though Mr. Compson doubts he even wanted the title). Sutpen, meanwhile, has left with his and Sartoris’s regiment, and Sutpen’s enslaved people have left with the Yankee troops who passed through. Ellen stays in bed all day, shut in and waiting to die while Judith and Clytie keep house. Wash Jones and his daughter live in the abandoned fishing camp in the river bottom.
The gradual decline of Sutpen’s Hundred—its owner is gone, and the enslaved people whose unpaid labor drove its profits have abandoned it to fight with the Union—symbolizes the failure of Sutpen’s ambition and, more broadly, the decline of the Old South. Wash Jones has only appeared in passing thus far, but he’ll be important later on, so it’s important to remember him.
Themes
Ellen dies and is buried under a massive marble monument Sutpen brought from Charleston, South Carolina. Then Judith’s grandfather Mr. Coldfield dies, having starved to death in his attic, and Judith likely invites Miss Rosa to come live with her (Mr. Compson guesses). Miss Rosa declines the offer, apparently waiting for Judith to receive a letter from Bon (the very letter Mr. Compson now holds). Judith then asks Quentin’s grandmother to keep it—to destroy it, for all she cares. She laments how “little impression” people make in life, merely “mixed up” with other people, as though they’re all strings on a loom. Each wants to make their own pattern, and none of it matters—otherwise, whoever set up the loom would’ve done it better.
The narrative further establishes the Civil War as a turning point, both for the story’s main characters and the pre-war South in a more general sense. The deaths of Ellen and Mr. Coldfield reflect the mass casualties the Confederacy suffered during the Civil War, albeit on a much smaller scale. The abundance of death also symbolically marks the Civil War as a turning point that separates the South as it existed before from the South as it will exist after: even though many of the novel’s central characters will survive the war, the way of life they’ve grown accustomed to (one characterized by so-called “respectability”—and made comfortable by their complicity in the practice of slavery) will no longer be possible.
Themes
In the present, Mr. Compson hands the letter to Quentin. Quentin takes it and opens it carefully, as though it’s merely “the intact ash of its former shape” and no longer the paper itself. Mr. Compson continues speaking. From reading the letter, he assures Quentin, Quentin will understand that Bon did love Judith, though the letters that came before this one were full of floral and romantic—yet ultimately shallow—sentiments. Mr. Compson goes on talking, but Quentin stops hearing him as he reads the letter.
Quentin’s odd observation that the letter is merely “the intact ash of its former shape” reinforces the book’s broader examination of the fallibility of memory and the inaccessibility of truth. This letter might contain clues about Bon and Judith’s romance and about whatever conflict inspired Henry first to side with and later to betray Bon, but it won’t tell the full story of everything that happened.
Themes
The letter is undated, but from its contents Quentin learns it’s 1865. In the letter, Bon talks of the hardship and suffering he’s experienced serving in the war. Then he declares to Judith, “We have waited long enough.” But Bon can’t say when he’ll be back. Cryptically, Bon describes how the thing that “was” “died in 1861, and therefore what IS […] is redundancy too […].” But in some ways, Bon counters, he feels that “it has never stopped.”
The letter’s 1865 date places its writing at the end of the Civil War—and just before Bon’s death. Bon’s cryptic words here seem to implicitly link his and Judith’s romance (recall that they’ve not seen each other since Henry and Bon left Sutpen’s Hundred following Henry’s argument with Sutpen) with the pre-war South: both “died in 1861,” meaning the engagement has been called off just as the Civil War has made the culture of the pre-war South impossible. Yet despite this, Bon suggests, “it has never stopped,” meaning Bon and Judith’s romance has persisted despite the engagement’s being called off, and the culture of the pre-war South lingers in the atmosphere of the region despite the Civil War that has threatened its existence.
Themes
Bon’s letter continues, restating that he can’t tell Judith when he’ll be back. He notes that he wrote his letter “with the best […] of the new North” which has defeated the South. He concludes his letter with a grave declaration: “I now believe that you and I are, strangely enough, included among those who are doomed to live.”
This notion of being “doomed to live” should sound familiar—it’s a sentiment normally applied to or spoken of by Miss Rosa. The language of Bon’s letter is cryptic and vague, but he seems to paint Southerners who survive the war as somehow worse off than those who died fighting in it. Having lost the war and the way of life they were fighting for, surviving Southerners won’t have a culture or social structure to organize their lives around anymore. This, Bon seems to suggest, is a fate worse than death. Again, the narrative (and in this case, Bon) links Bon and Judith’s doomed romance with the fate of the Old South.
Themes
In the present, Quentin finishes reading the letter. Mr. Compson explains that Clytie and Judith got to work making Judith’s wedding gown after Judith received this letter. They made the veil from scraps of fabrics. Maybe Bon showed Henry the letter before sending it, Mr. Compson suggests. But maybe he didn’t. Maybe he simply told Henry of his plans for Judith, and Henry, in response, continued to demand that Bon renounce the other woman and her child. Henry (in Mr. Compson’s imagination) would have demanded that Bon not “pass the shadow of this post, this Branch,” and Bon would have defied Henry. And all this leads to the point in the story when Wash Jones approaches Rosa Coldfield’s house to announce that Henry killed Bon.
That Clytie and Judith make Judith’s bridal veil from scraps of fabric shows how far the Sutpens have fallen since the war began—in a different world, it would be unthinkable that the daughter of the most successful planter in the county would resort to making her bridal garb with such paltry materials. This passage also alludes to the gate to Sutpen’s Hundred (“the shadow of this post”). In the novel, gates and doorways symbolize the acknowledgment of the past or truth. Throughout the story, characters struggle to pass through—or are prevented from passing through—gates and doors, and this symbolizes their willingness or ability to acknowledge or atone for the past and realize the truth. This chapter ends on a dramatic, tragic note, with Wash Jones alerting Miss Rosa to Henry’s murder of Bon. Interestingly, though there have been multiple references to Bon’s death, the novel has yet to describe the scene of Bon’s murder as it occurred; all that’s known of it comes from others’ accounts.
Themes
