Absalom Summary

Absalom, Absalom! deals with race and the class issue from the perspective of a white poor male, Thomas Supton, who seems to find the formula to “success”. After obtaining property, slaves, a respectable wife, and money he is able to claim success. Supton is always trying to find the answer to solve his economic insecurities, likewise while traveling through Europe, Mansart, in Worlds of Color, is told that blacks are focusing on the wrong things. While in Russia a man told, “… because I want to call attention to one mistake that you American negros are making. You are trying to make an alliance with the old planter class, and the new rich of the North…” (56). This shows the struggle between race and class from the perspective of the marginalized.
What is interesting is that Thomas Supton was humiliated, but was able to use that humiliation to drive his ambitions and because he was a white male economic mobility and the “American Dream” was obtainable. In contrast, Marsart displays a man, better yet a race, that consistently works hard and faces oppression and systematic discrimination that almost completely prevent African Americans from achieving upward economic mobility, or the “American Dream.” I liked that this man was able to point out that American negros where fighting the wrong person, but I wish and hope that through the rest of this novel Du Bois reveals the right person for African Americans to fight.