Absalom, Absalom! :A Reading
Guide
Chapters 7, 8, and 9
CHAPTER SEVEN:
Setting: Harvard, Shreve and Quentin’s
room
Time: Later that night in January 1910
Speakers: Shreve and Quentin
Plot Events: Quentin stares at the letter from his father, tells
Shreve about his grandfather going with Sutpen to
hunt for the escaped architect, and that during that hunt Sutpen
told General Compson his life story (before Jefferson
and Sutpen’s Hundred). Sutpen
was born in West Virginia to poor
mountain-folk; Quentin describes all the things Sutpen
didn’t know about race and class divisions. The Sutpens
move to tidewater Maryland (it takes them a long but unspecified time to get
there, in part because Thomas’ father drinks so much) where Thomas first sees
plantations, slaves, and wealth. Thomas learns that differences between white
men can’t be measured in terms of strength alone. Then one day his father sends
him to the “big house” with a message; he goes to the front door and a slave
turns him away. Thomas tries to figure out what happened and what to do about
“it.” Quentin then states that Thomas Sutpen went to
the West Indies; that he’d had some schooling and his
teacher must have read to him from a book about the West Indies
as a place to get rich. Sutpen tells General Compson about his “design.” Then the narrative returns to
the hunt for the architect, then back to Sutpen in
the West Indies, where Sutpen became an overseer on a
sugar plantation, eventually helping to fight off a slave rebellion, and thus
winning the had of the daughter of the plantation owner. Then Sutpen stopped telling the story to Quentin’s grandfather,
and Quentin stops telling the story to Shreve. Quentin tells about catching the
architect. Then he tells Shreve that it was thirty years after the incident of
catching the architect that Sutpen told General Compson the rest of the story. Sutpen
went to General Compson to see if General Compson could find the mistake, the flaw in the design.
Quentin thinks (in italics) that he and Shreve are both like his father.
Quentin tells Shreve that he had to tell Mr. Compson
some of this story (after the trip with Rosa to Sutpen’s Hundred). Quentin retells the story of Henry
bringing Bon home, but now from Sutpen’s perspective.
Mr. Compson’s voice (in italics) tells of the
engagement to Rosa. Then Shreve wants to “play”: he
tells the story for a while, but Quentin takes it up again, describing how Wash
Jones reacted to Sutpen’s return, to Sutpen’s seduction of Milly Jones (Wash’s
granddaughter). Quentin tells how Sutpen, checking on
a newborn foal, also stopped by Wash Jones’ shack to check on Milly, who had just given birth to Sutpen’s
child, and how Wash killed Sutpen with a scythe, then
killed Milly as he was being arrested. The chapter
ends with Quentin revealing that Milly’s child was a
girl, and Shreve suggesting they go to bed.
Themes, Images, and Things to Note: Word “it.” Idea
of innocence, childhood. Luck vs. Fate. Concept of
ownership. Word “them”. Languages. Books and stories; idea of truth. Word
“design”. Idea of destiny. Clothes
and identity. Word “virgin.” Movement
and time. Island, isolation. Father
and son relations. Word “knows.” Word “wait.” Notion of accounts, economy, ledger. Value
of humans, animals.
CHAPTER EIGHT:
Setting: Harvard, January 1910; Quentin
and Shreve’s room
Time: After midnight
Speakers: Quentin and Shreve
Plot Events: Shreve continues the story, describing how Sutpen forbade the marriage by telling Henry that Bon was
his brother. Shreve then imagines Bon’s childhood, Bon’s mother raising him as
a tool to get revenge on Sutpen. Shreve imagines Bon
as a racehorse, then imagines the family lawyer’s
role, including his secret file, keeping track of Sutpen’s
acquisitions and wealth. Shreve imagines
the lawyer giving Bon’s mother false reports about Sutpen,
imagines Bon’s childhood, reactions to his mother and the lawyer manipulating
him, including sending him to college without telling him why. The lawyer
writes a letter (in italics) to Henry, introducing Bon, but not mentioning that
they are brothers. Then Shreve announces that he and Quentin will talk about
love. Shreve imagines what Bon thought (in italics) looking at Henry, thinking
about his father, wanting to meet Sutpen and be
acknowledged as his son. Then Quentin and Shreve have a discussion about love,
and Shreve returns to telling the story about Bon wanting Sutpen
to acknowledge him, expecting it every time he goes with Henry to Sutpen’s Hundred. Shreve and Quentin become merged with Bon
and Henry, as Henry and Bon go to New Orleans
and meet Bon’s mother, and Bon’s “wife” and son, and the lawyer. The lawyer
insults Bon, who threatens him. Henry then believes that Bon is his brother,
and wants to prevent the marriage between Bon and Judith, but also wants to
make it happen, so tries to find precedents for incestuous marriages; Shreve
tells this largely from Bon’s point of view. In italics, Quentin recounts what
Bon must have thought during the winter of 1864; this part ends when Henry is
summoned to see the Colonel, and Shreve takes over
telling about Quentin and Rosa going up the stairs at Sutpen’s
Hundred and being stopped by Clytie. Then the
narrative returns (in italics) to Henry and Bon in the War, telling how Henry
saw Sutpen and Sutpen told
Henry that Bon was part Negro; when Henry rejoins Bon, Henry forbids the
marriage again. Then Shreve retells how Henry and Bon went together to Sutpen’s Hundred and how Henry shot Bon, and why Bon had
the picture of the octoroon in the frame Judith had given him. The chapter ends
with Shreve suggesting they go to bed.
Themes, Images, and Things to Note: Merging identities, especially
Shreve and Quentin, Bon and Henry. Father/son relations.
Mother/son relations. Childhood.
Heat and cold. Phrase “it did not
matter.” Punctuation, especially colons, dashes,
parentheses. Image of tomb. Humans
as animals. Ideas of love, honor, courage, pride. Gender
confusion; feminine and masculine roles, clothes, abilities. Idea of “love.”
CHAPTER NINE:
Setting: Harvard, Quentin and Shreve’s
room, January 1910
Time: After midnight
Speakers: Quentin and Shreve, at times Jim Bond, Henry Sutpen
Plot Events: You can’t
expect me to tell you the ending, can you??
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