Absalom, Absalom Essay, Research Paper

Absalom, Absalom

The South in the 19th century gave an image of wealth, prosperity, and category. This nevertheless was an image, non a manner of life. The route to this sort of life was one of treachery, finding, hatred, etc. The South wanted ownership, it wanted something that it could touch and experience, non something that it could see. This manner of life is best portrayed by William Faulkner in Absalom, Absalom. This sort of life is desired by many people at some degree, to demo that a individual has achieved. Peoples need to hold something to show to the populace that they have accomplished their & # 8216 ; dream. & # 8217 ; In, Thomas Sutpen is merely like any other human being with a dream. He wishes to accomplish the greatest end, wealth. His manner of acquiring to his dream is filled with artlessness, yet he kills the dreams of others along the manner. Thomas Sutpen did non recognize what he was making to his ain hereafter by seeking to build his dynasty. Thomas Sutpen & # 8217 ; s finding, treachery, and artlessness causes his concluding ruin. William Faulkner proves to the reader that our hereafter is finally doomed as a society if we do non recognize the errors we make ; and in an effort to repair them, repair the lesions we have created. These errors, both big and little, are what will finally announce our hereafter.

Where did Thomas Sutpen & # 8217 ; s desire for wealth originate from? From the minute after he was forced to experience unwanted by those of his & # 8216 ; kind. & # 8217 ; After that individual minute in Sutpen & # 8217 ; s full life he decided that he could no longer be what other people looked down upon. From now on he would be the one to protect and salvage those who were less fortunate. & # 8220 ; & # 8230 ; he would take that male child in where he would ne’er once more necessitate to stand on the exterior of a white door and knock at it ; and non at all for mere shelter but so that male child & # 8230 ; could close himself everlastingly behind him on all that he had & # 8230 ; ( 210Faulkner ) & # 8221 ; Thomas Sutpen did non desire another individual to be put through the same hurting and humiliation that he was on that twenty-four hours. By protecting others he would be animating the twenty-four hours when he was merely a male child. The others that he saved would be reproduction of himself at that age. Thomas Sutpen was rejected on the twenty-four hours that he arrived at the house by non merely by the proprietors, but by society. He realized that he was non on a degree with the others, as many of us do at a immature age, he was lower than the slaves. Young Sutpen couldn & # 8217 ; t stand this humiliation, and in order to stay sane, he created this dream. This was what kept Sutpen traveling, in good times and in bad. Sutpen has a long journey to his stuff successes and along the manner had to merely retrieve his childhood injury to maintain traveling. However, his finding to make this hierarchy caused the loves and lives of the many others that surrounded him, to neglect.

The first individual that we are introduced to in this book, is Rosa. We can instantly reason that with her visual aspect and tone, she did non hold a really happy life. Her point in stating this narrative is to imply the already deceased Sutpen. Her ability to populate on hatred alone is surprising, nevertheless, nil is impossible. Rosa & # 8217 ; s sister and love were taken off by Sutpen & # 8217 ; s hopes and dreams. Rosa easy begins to see and understand Sutpen & # 8217 ; s programs, and when she realizes what it is he has done, Rosa has no 1. Ellen, after get marrieding Sutpen, realizes that the matrimony was ne’er out of true love, or demand for her love. This matrimony was to based on offspring. Ellen could hold run off, but she would hold been hard up off from her household, so she stayed with Sutpen and lived the life of a rich Southern adult female. When Ellen & # 8217 ; s male parent asks Ellen if she loved Sutpen, she could merely state her male parent & # 8217 ; s name and expression at him. Ellen genuinely believed that she loved Sutpen, and Mr. Coldfield could non protect his girl from the day of reckoning she was approximately to brush. Her artlessness of Thomas Sutpen and his enterprises was pure. It wasn & # 8217 ; t until after the birth of Judith that she realized how unhappy she truly was, and how unhappy he cou

ld make her. But the South created such an constitution of matrimony that she could make nil but accept her corrupt matrimony. Henry and Charles are two really important characters, although different, small do they recognize that they have a really much in common, Sutpen. All Henry of all time wanted was Charles’ love and Charles wanted the acknowledgment from his male parent that he was, in fact, his boy. However, Sutpen could non acknowledge Charles as a boy, because this would convey him degrees down on his ain graduated table. This left Charles fatherless and confused. He wanted a life with this adult male, when he could non recognize that Sutpen wanted to be as far from Charles and Eulalia, as he could be. This brings us to Henry. Henry wanted credence and love from Charles because he was affluent, good educated, and was traveling to get married Judith. Henry wanted nil more than to populate through this adult male. Charles would hold all the things that Henry wanted, but he could non populate to make all these things. After Sutpen relays the information of Charles being portion Negro and his boy, Henry realizes that he must destruct Charles. He kills him, partly in his trueness to his male parent, and partially for his love for Judith. Through this, Sutpen destroys his ain dynasty. He has driven one boy to madness, the other boy to his decease, and his lone girl now is a widowman. Thomas Sutpen will hold no dynasty. Through these old ages of treachery, lives are lost, and a household is lacerate apart. Yet through it all, Thomas Sutpen ne’er realizes the errors that he made.

Artlessness. This is non a word that many would link with Thomas Sutpen or his actions. No, non instantly, nevertheless if we look at the nucleus of the failure of his household, it is easier to understand how a adult male like Thomas Sutpen could, in fact, be guiltless. From the start, Thomas Sutpen & # 8217 ; s ends were non far off from many others at that period in clip. He did non desire to ache any individual that loved him, he merely wanted to accomplish his end. & # 8220 ; His problem was artlessness. All of a sudden he discovered, non what he wanted to make but what he merely had to make, had to make it whether he wanted to or non, because if he did non make it he knew that he could ne’er populate with himself for the remainder of his life & # 8230 ; ( 178Faulkner ) & # 8221 ; However, being so set on his end, he ignored any jobs that had to make with his personal life. In fact, Thomas Sutpen ne’er did hold a personal life, he merely did things for show. Marrying. Having kids, slaves etc. Every act that he of all time committed was for the hereafter of his plantation and for his dynasty. It was ne’er for those who cared for him. Sutpen did non recognize that a kid & # 8217 ; s love is natural and can non be removed. He ne’er realized that person could love him so much. So, he did non cognize how to cover with these jobs and pushed them aside with money or his power. In order to repair a job and do the state of affairs better, the error must foremost be recognized and so fixed. If it is non realized them there is no true solution and the job will still be.

Some of the errors we create along the class of our lives are guiltless and some are non. Thomas Sutpen did non see the ruin of his dynasty approach, because he ne’er realized that he made any errors. Sutpen longed for the life that he could ne’er genuinely have. In order to bask the finer things that he had ever wanted, he needed to bask them with person. When he eventually achieved a end, he merely wanted more. Sutpen ne’er genuinely appreciated what it was he had. He was ne’er a happy adult male. He dug deeper and deeper to happen what we wanted on and in this Earth, until one twenty-four hours he had dug a hole so deep that it began to undermine in. The errors that he made stayed unrecognised until the terminal, and so even he did non detect them. Faulkner tried through stating Sutpen & # 8217 ; s life, to show to us that by non taking duty in the errors we make, and non acknowledging that they & # 8217 ; rhenium at that place, we will be doomed as a society. We are in fact delving our ain Gravess. Until we can be responsible and lovingness, as a society, one by one we will destruct ourselves.