Monday, February 2, 2009

Close Reading of Race in Absalom, Absalom!

By, Allison Price, Ashley Woltermann, and Jonathan Fessel

It can be said that much of William Faulkner’s work was not merely the stories that he wrote; rather his work was to tell the story of the South. With this in mind, one must consider all of the implications of writing a story about the South, or writing about the South in general. Invariably, one of the themes of such a work would be race, and/or racism. For this class, as well as this blog, it is this subject of race/racism which most concerns us. It is our contention, here, to analyze race and racism, as evidenced in William Faulkner’s work, Absalom, Absalom!

“A huge bull of a nigger, the first black man, slave, they had ever seen, who emerged with the old man over his shoulder like a sack of meal and his—the nigger’s—mouth loud with laughing and full of teeth like tombstones” (Faulkner 182).

As early as the beginning of the book, Sutpen’s slaves are characterized as “wild”, and “animalistic.” The first instance of slaves in the novel shows this: “grouped behind him [Sutpen] his band of wild niggers like beasts half tamed to walk upright like men, in attitudes wild and reposed” (4). This portrays Sutpen’s band of slaves as wild beastly creatures. The quote expresses that the slaves themselves are from an entirely different species, just learning to walk and act like human beings. It is the earliest example of racism in the book, showing the reader the prejudice context of the south. Another side to this racist connotation was brought up in class- Are the slaves wild, or is Sutpen making them wild? This idea is further expressed during the end of chapter 1, when Sutpen was fighting with his slaves: “And Ellen seeing not the two black beasts she had expected to see but instead a white one and a black one, both naked to the waist and gouging at one another’s eyes as if their skins should not only have been the same color but should have been covered with fur too” (Faulkner 20-1). This accentuates the thought that Sutpen is the reason his Negroes are so wild, but what happened before he came into Jefferson with his “wild negroes”?

As we look back to chapter 7 we can recall when Sutpen was turned away from entering into the front door of a home. It was this situation haunted him to the day of his death. The “smooth white house and that smooth white brass-decorated door and the very broadcloth and linen and silk stockings the monkey nigger stood in to tell him to go around to the back before he could even state his business” (Faulkner 189). This idolization of the house, and the nice clothing of the slave caused Sutpen to realize not everyone is equal. Even an innocent white boy who has lived with a rich white family for 2 years has to use the back door, and even the slave has nicer clothes than he does. His extreme jealousy causes him to dream of one day having a large house, a family to pass down his name, and a high status in society.

“The man who owned all the land and the niggers...lived in the biggest house he had ever seen and spent most of the afternoon in a barrel stave hammock between two trees, with his shoes off and a nigger who wore everyday better clothes than he or his father and sisters had ever owned and ever expected to, who did nothing else but fan him and bring him drinks; and he [Sutpen] lying there all afternoon while the sisters would come from time to time to the door of the cabin two miles away and scream at him for wood or water, watching that man who not only had shoes in the summertime too, but didn’t even have to wear them “(Faulkner 184).

Sutpen’s fantasies began when he left for the West Indies. This adventure is where he began to construct his grand design. After “subduing” a slave revolt on a plantation in Haiti, he wed the plantation owner’s daughter, and they had a son, Charles Bon. But this family Sutpen began, just as planned, contained a secret. Once this secret was revealed, Sutpen had to make adjustments to his design.

“They deliberately withheld from me the one fact which I have reason to know they were aware would have caused me to decline the entire matter, otherwise they would not have withheld it from me—a fact which I did not learn until after my son was born… This new fact rendered it impossible that this woman and child be incorporated into my design” (Faulkner 212).

When Sutpen found that his wife and son had black blood, he immediately had to abandon them in order to save his design. Making arrangements for financial support, he set off to start another family in America. Sutpen’s racism and selfishness is apparent, as he is willing to leave his wife and son because of their cultural heritage (which was so subtle, he didn’t even notice.) Not only was his prejudice obvious, but it was also passed down to his second son Henry.

Henry grew up watching his father wrestle his slaves and it seemed Sutpen wanted Henry to follow in his footsteps. He went off to college where he made close friends with Charles Bon (which he later found out was his brother). Henry brought Bon to his home where he became engaged to Judith, Henry’s sister. Henry had a lot of mixed emotions about the incestuous marriage that was planned to occur, but he finally decided he was okay with the idea. When Sutpen told Henry that Bon was part black, it enraged Henry so much that he eventually killed Bon. Henry’s anger did not arrive from the idea of incest, but from the idea that his sister would marry someone who had black blood. This idea, of a pure white family, was passed down from Sutpen to Henry, as well as prejudice against the black society, and all of this occurred in the midst of the American civil war.

This book is set during a time when men of the south were fighting to keep racism alive through the civil war. As we remember from History 101, the South fell at the end of the civil war and the black society ended up better off for it. These facts resemble the story of Absalom, Absalom, the story of a southern man, his struggle to keep a legacy and to establish his dominance in society. And just as the civil war ended leaving the black society with victory and the South with failure, Sutpen’s personal war ends with his part black great grandson Jim Bond as the last man to carry on the Sutpen legacy, leaving Sutpen’s grand design a failure as well.

“One nigger Sutpen left… In time the Jim Bonds are going to conquer the western hemisphere… and so in a few thousand years, I who regard you will also have sprung from the loins of African kings “(Faulkner 302).

By closely reading William Faulkner’s work, Absalom, Absalom! it becomes quite clear that a major part of Faulkner’s story about the south is the idea of and the frequency, or prevalence, of race and racism throughout the south. There are a multitude of examples and instances of less than flattering interactions between the book’s white main characters and the black characters, even those who are only a possess a fraction of “negro blood”(Charles Bon, etc). With this in mind, the question begs: How are we to read Faulkner’s views on race through reading his texts?

Works Cited



Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom! New York: Vintage, 1992.

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for this insightful and compelling post. I was initially drawn in by your creative use of multi-media and the hilarity of the South Park video clip. (However, I would have liked for you to make a connection between South Park and Faulkner—an interesting link that is not made everyday in a literature class!).

    Your group did a fine job of finding specific textual evidence as regards to Faulkner’s treatment of race in the text. You did well to point out the initial scenes that introduce the slaves who, “are from an entirely different species, just learning to walk and act like human beings.” This seems to go right along with Toni Morrison’s idea that in texts written by white authors, the Africanist presence is often depicted as animalistic in nature. The novel also pits Haiti as the “old world” from which Sutpen needs to escape.

    I agree when you write, "These facts resemble the story of Absalom, Absalom, the story of a southern man, his struggle to keep a legacy and to establish his dominance in society." Faulkner, through one family, attempts to recreate the history of the south--along with all of its complexities. I’d be curious to hear your classmates comments about the final question you leave us with. Which side of the race card is Faulkner on? Is the final act of the novel—the eventual burning down of Sutpen’s Hundred—a political act? An apolitical one? How might you read the character of Bon in terms of his ability to “pass”?

    Overall, this is an idea post. I do want to point out your “floating” quotes, however—always be sure to introduce quotations with signal phrases. Also, every time you use a quote, be sure to explain specifically how you see it working in the text.

    Thanks for your work—I think your strong essay was made stronger through the use of your videos, pictures, and drawings. I encourage everyone else to utilize this nontraditional form and find multimedia to highlight the main points you are making.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Close Reading of Race in Absalom, Absalom! (Review by Matt Barrick)
    By, Allison Price, Ashley Woltermann, and Jonathan Fessel
    This group project of looking deeper into the meaning of race/ racism in Faulkner really hit the nail on the head. The examples drawn from the book pull out a wide range of situations that reflect not only Faulkner, but overtones of the South at the time as well . African Americans were not viewed as people, but mechanisms, tools of Southern expansion and economic progress. Faulkner's writings in Absalom, Absalom show that sentiment even expands to physical entertainment and mockery. Aside from showing the brutality of the fighting between master and slave, this analysis showed how master and slave often lived together in a certain level of harmony,
    “The man who owned all the land and the niggers...lived in the biggest house he had ever seen and spent most of the afternoon in a barrel stave hammock between two trees, with his shoes off and a nigger who wore everyday better clothes than he or his father and sisters had ever owned and ever expected to, who did nothing else but fan him and bring him drinks; and he [Sutpen] lying there all afternoon while the sisters would come from time to time to the door of the cabin two miles away and scream at him for wood or water, watching that man who not only had shoes in the summertime too, but didn’t even have to wear them “(Faulkner 184).

    Even if it wasn't apparently so, Sutpen's character is somewhat more at ease than other stereotypical "slave owners" we hear about today. While there are of course horrendous stories of slaves being abused most however lived very well and were not treated poorly; aside from actually still being a slave.
    In Absalom, Absalom the racial passages are spoken so nonchalantly the meanings of the words almost slip by. For examples its similar to when someone says "like" to many times in speech, it slips by without notice, but you know it's there and its wrong. The way racial slurs are thrown around in this text are viewed as common speech, and really no care is given to what they mean to people of color that are on the receiving end of the verbal assault.
    I think Allison Price, Ashley Woltermann, and Jonathan Fessel did a really good job and diving deeper into this text and really pulling out great points. The use of mass media also made me smile and enjoy the text.

    Matt Barrick

    ReplyDelete
  3. While there are tons of racist comments in "Absalom, Absalom", the readers need to remember that Faulkner is trying to show an accurate depiction of the attitude in the South. This attitude was very racist. The reader also needs to remember that this is what people in that time where brought up knowing. Most people knew no other way to react. Luckily, today most people have realized that this attitude was horrible, however, for the time it was the norm.

    Brianna Habel

    ReplyDelete
  4. When I first started reading this text I was surprised how specific Faulkner was when he was describing the slaves. It shocked me how he compared them to animals and subhumans. I was asking myself "Is this how Faulkner viewed blacks?" Brianna is right though that this book was written back when a lot of whites believed that blacks weren't equal to whites and there was a lot of racial hostility. The question becomes can we really blame Faulkner or were his views of blacks based on the culture and ways of thinking of his time? Regardless of that question the amount of racism in Faulkner's book is sickening but at the same time it shows us just how bad society was back then. While we have come a long way from Faulkner's way of thinking we still have quite a way to go to reach true equality.

    Justin Church

    ReplyDelete
  5. In relation to Matt's post I thought that the mention of racial slurs as common speech was interesting. I believe that the racial slurs in this book are often over looked and are more prevalent upon closer examination. Just as "like" is used in everyday conversation, without closer examination, it may be entirely ignored. This is true for the racial slurs, and even though "like" may not be relevant to the overall meaning of the conversation the racial undertones of the text or conversation are definitely an important aspect that contribute significantly to the conversation.
    I think this is definitely important to consider when examining the racial slurs, because even though they may not have been intended, they are evident. The fact that they aren't intended points out the fact that people may not realize racist remarks upon making them.
    I think this group did a nice job at delving deeper into the text and finding elements that are important aspects when examining a book so full of underlying meaning such as "Absalom, Absalom!"

    -Rachel Kohler

    ReplyDelete