Absalom Absalom 
Absalom,
Absalom!
SETTING
The primary settings of Absalom , Absalom! alternate between two days(one, in September 1909 in Jefferson, Mississippi, and the other in January 1910 in Cambridge, Massachusetts) and much of the nineteenth century, centered on Jefferson in the 1860s, the years before, during and after the Civil War. This dual framework of time and place sets up a contrast between the elusive historical past and a present-day vantage (1909-10) from which to interpret it. Furthermore, the contrast of the hot, dusty, wisteria-scented
Mississippi September of the novel’s present day (in the first half of the novel) with the snowy, iron-cold Massachusetts January of the second half also heightens the duality of the novel.
SETTING
Some of the novel’s past episodes range over settings that include Virginia and Haiti in the early nineteenth-century, the University of Mississippi in Oxford (40 miles from its fictional counterpart, Jefferson), the exotic New Orleans world of free people of color, and scattered scenes of Civil War military campaigns. The central setting of Absalom , Absalom!
Is Jefferson in Yoknapatawpha County, though, and the novel contributes an epic segment to Faulkner’s fictional saga. There is even a link to the story of the Sartoris family. It is Absalom’s Thomas
Sutpen who replaced Col. Sartoris at the head of their Confederate regiment in the Civil War.
Characters
Major Characters & Narrators
Thomas Sutpen
The enterprising son of a poor farmer from West Virginia who comes to
Jefferson in 1833 and founds the Sutpen estate. This colorful character, who forms the hub of the novel, is killed by Wash Jones, a poor white squatter on his land.
Henry Sutpen
The son of Thomas by Ellen Coldfield and heir to the Sutpen estate. He kills his half-brother, Charles Bon, to prevent him marrying his sister,
Judith.
Judith Sutpen
Henry's sister. She falls in love with Charles Bon, unaware that he is her half-brother. Clytie (or Clytemnestra) Sutpen
Absalom!
SETTING
The primary settings of Absalom , Absalom! alternate between two days(one, in September 1909 in Jefferson, Mississippi, and the other in January 1910 in Cambridge, Massachusetts) and much of the nineteenth century, centered on Jefferson in the 1860s, the years before, during and after the Civil War. This dual framework of time and place sets up a contrast between the elusive historical past and a present-day vantage (1909-10) from which to interpret it. Furthermore, the contrast of the hot, dusty, wisteria-scented
Mississippi September of the novel’s present day (in the first half of the novel) with the snowy, iron-cold Massachusetts January of the second half also heightens the duality of the novel.
SETTING
Some of the novel’s past episodes range over settings that include Virginia and Haiti in the early nineteenth-century, the University of Mississippi in Oxford (40 miles from its fictional counterpart, Jefferson), the exotic New Orleans world of free people of color, and scattered scenes of Civil War military campaigns. The central setting of Absalom , Absalom!
Is Jefferson in Yoknapatawpha County, though, and the novel contributes an epic segment to Faulkner’s fictional saga. There is even a link to the story of the Sartoris family. It is Absalom’s Thomas
Sutpen who replaced Col. Sartoris at the head of their Confederate regiment in the Civil War.
Characters
Major Characters & Narrators
Thomas Sutpen
The enterprising son of a poor farmer from West Virginia who comes to
Jefferson in 1833 and founds the Sutpen estate. This colorful character, who forms the hub of the novel, is killed by Wash Jones, a poor white squatter on his land.
Henry Sutpen
The son of Thomas by Ellen Coldfield and heir to the Sutpen estate. He kills his half-brother, Charles Bon, to prevent him marrying his sister,
Judith.
Judith Sutpen
Henry's sister. She falls in love with Charles Bon, unaware that he is her half-brother. Clytie (or Clytemnestra) Sutpen