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Symbols
Gates and doors symbolize the act of confronting and understanding difficult truths. Throughout the novel, characters have important revelations or achieve closure when they pass through—or fail to pass through—doors or gates. When Sutpen is a young boy, he loses his innocence about the correlation between race, class, and respect when a Black enslaved man denies him entry through the front door of the mansion of the wealthy planter whom Sutpen’s family works for. It’s Sutpen’s failure to pass through that door that ignites the ambition—his “design”—that consumes the rest of his life. Doors also play a key role in Sutpen’s refusal to acknowledge Charles Bon as his legitimate heir: Sutpen resolves to become wealthy and powerful to ensure that no son of his will ever be disrespected or denied entry through a door ever again. Accepting Bon would upend that goal, for Bon, as a man with Black ancestry, would be denied entry to countless doors in the pre-war culture of the South.
Meanwhile, in the novel’s present, Quentin dreads passing through the door when he and Miss Rosa arrive at Sutpen’s estate to discover the identity of the person she’s been hiding there (Henry)—an action that would symbolically force Quentin to confront the painful and confusing inherited past he’s had thrust upon him simply by being born in the South. Finally, the gate to Sutpen’s Hundred holds great symbolic value—it’s where Henry murders Bon to prevent him from marrying Judith. In murdering Bon at the gate, Henry denies Bon entry into Sutpen’s dynasty via a marriage to Judith, an action that reflects Henry’s drive to prioritize the preservation of the social and racial hierarchies of the pre-war culture into which he was born.
Doors and Gates Quotes in Absalom, Absalom!
The Absalom, Absalom! quotes below all refer to the symbol of Doors and Gates. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 7
Quotes
“His trouble was innocence. All of a sudden he discovered, not what he wanted to do but what he just had to do, had to do it whether he wanted to or not, because if he did not do it he knew that he could never live with himself for the rest of his life […].”
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Doors and Gates Symbol Timeline in Absalom, Absalom!
The timeline below shows where the symbol Doors and Gates appears in Absalom, Absalom!. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3
...and looted his store. That night, he heads upstairs to the attic and nails the door shut behind him, and he remains there until his death. Miss Rosa, who before now...
(full context)
Chapter 4
...(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...
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Chapter 5
...and she also feels foolish for coming here expecting to see Henry “emerge from some door” as though nothing has happened and urging her to “wake up,” as though the present...
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...she arrives at Sutpen’s Hundred following Bon’s murder. Judith encounters Rosa standing before “the closed door which [Rosa] was not to enter.” Then Judith tells Clytie that Rosa will be staying...
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...trails off as Quentin stops listening and considers how he, too, cannot walk through “that door.” He imagines the interaction between Henry and Judith when Henry told Judith about Bon’s murder....
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Chapter 7
...He is excited, thinking he’ll finally see inside it. But when he approaches the front door, a Black enslaved man tells him to use the back door, putting Sutpen in his...
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Chapter 8
...Quentin’s retelling, it’s possible that Bon and Henry rode to Sutpen’s Hundred together, approaching the gate side by side. Judith and Clytie heard the shot ring out when Henry shot Bon....
(full context)
Chapter 9
...from them. When they reach the house, Miss Rosa doesn’t let Quentin cross through the gate. Quentin wonders what she’s afraid of. He wants to just return to town, but he...
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When Quentin and Miss Rosa arrive at the door to the old house, Miss Rosa urges Quentin to break it open with the hatchet....
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...woman (Clytie) doesn’t say a single word to him. Instead, she calmly walks to the door and opens it for Miss Rosa, as though she’s been expecting her all these years....
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The narrative abruptly skips forward. Quentin has stopped the buggy at Miss Rosa’s gate after returning from Sutpen’s Hundred. This time, Miss Rosa lets Quentin help her down from...
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...gives in to his fear and runs the distance from the buggy to his front door. He runs upstairs to his room and hurriedly removes his clothes, thinking he’d like to...
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