Jim Bond is the son of Charles Etienne and Charles Etienne’s unnamed wife. The novel implies that he was born with intellectual disabilities. He is Thomas Sutpen’s grandson by birth, though Sutpen wouldn’t acknowledge him as such (nor could he, as Sutpen died before the child was born) due to the boy’s Black ancestry. Clytie raises him in the old slave cabin on Sutpen’s Hundred. After Clytie sets the house on fire at the end of the story, killing herself and Henry Sutpen, onlookers hear Bond’s agonized wail coming nearby, but he flees before anyone can locate him. Quentin says people still hear his wailing from time to time. As the sole surviving Sutpen, his suffering—his being “doomed to live,” to employ a phrase Rosa Coldfield uses often—symbolizes the enduring and unacknowledged trauma of slavery in the post-war South.
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Jim Bond Character Timeline in Absalom, Absalom!
The timeline below shows where the character Jim Bond appears in Absalom, Absalom!. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 6
Judith pleads with Charles Etienne to renounce his wife and child ( Jim Bond ) and go to the North, where he can start fresh and pass as white....
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...and some other boys their age approaching the old cabin and seeing Charles Etienne’s son, Jim Bond , who is just a few years older than they are. Bond is wearing unwashed,...
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...confirming that he’s gotten all the unbelievable details of the story correct. Shreve verifies that Jim Bond and “the old woman”—Clytie—lived in the cabin for 26 years. Quentin confirms that this is...
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Chapter 9
...fall, then he hears a man’s voice. The man, who is Black, identifies himself as Jim Bond .
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...in the window for a moment, a look of “triumph” on her face.) And then Jim Bond , “the scion, the last of his race,” cries out from somewhere outside the house...
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...knowing “it was all finished now” and that the only thing that remains is “ that idiot boy to lurk around those ashes and those four gutted chimneys and howl,” and then Miss...
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...and Charles Bon and Clytie killed Henry. Shreve notes that just one Sutpen remains now: Jim Bond . He asks if Quentin still hears Jim Bond wailing at night, and Quentin says...
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