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Henry Sutpen
Judith Sutpen is Thomas Sutpen and Ellen Coldfield’s daughter. She becomes engaged to Henry’s college friend Charles Bon (who is actually their half-brother, unbeknownst to Judith or Henry) after Henry brings Bon to Sutpen’s Hundred for Christmas one year. It’s unclear whether Judith ever learns the truth about Bon’s identity. Throughout the book, it’s stated that Judith and Sutpen have an unspoken understanding of each other, so it’s possible that Judith senses—if only subconsciously—Bon’s connection to their family. Furthering the novel’s central incest plot, it’s also hinted that Judith and Henry are closer than siblings ought to be. Indeed, the book also loosely suggests that Henry’s eager enthusiasm for Judith and Bon’s engagement could be an expression of his unconscious wish to wed his own sister. After Henry discovers the truth about Bon’s mixed-race ancestry, he prohibits Bon from marrying Judith. In order to prevent the marriage, he shoots and kills Bon outside the gates to Sutpen’s Hundred as Judith looks on in her wedding dress. After Bon’s death, Judith discovers a photo of Bon’s mistress in the metal frame she gave him. In Quentin and Shreve’s imagined version of events, Bon planted the photo intentionally so that Judith would know not to grieve him. Judith continues to live at Sutpen’s Hundred with Clytie and Rosa after Bon’s death. Following Bon and his mistress’s deaths, Judith cares for Charles Etienne, the son Bon had with his mistress. She nurses Charles Etienne when he is sick with yellow fever before succumbing to the illness herself.
Judith Sutpen Quotes in Absalom, Absalom!
The Absalom, Absalom! quotes below are all either spoken by Judith Sutpen or refer to Judith Sutpen. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 4 Quotes
There was no time, no interval, no niche in the crowded days when he could have courted Judith. You can not even imagine him and Judith alone together. Try to do it and the nearest you can come is a projection of them while the two actual people were doubtless separate and elsewhere—two shades pacing, serene and untroubled by flesh, in a summer garden […].
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Chapter 5 Quotes
I waited for him exactly as Judith and Clytie waited for him: because now he was all we had, all that gave us any reason for continuing to exist, to eat food and sleep and wake and rise again: knowing that he would need us, knowing as we did (who knew him) that he would begin at once to salvage what was left of Sutpen’s Hundred and restore it.
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Chapter 8 Quotes
—Yes. What else can I do now? I gave him the choice. I have been giving him the choice for four years.
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Chapter 9 Quotes
“Yes. I remember your grandpaw. You go up there and make her come down. Make her go away from here. Whatever he done, me and Judith and him have paid it out. You go and get her. Take her away from here.”
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Judith Sutpen Character Timeline in Absalom, Absalom!
The timeline below shows where the character Judith Sutpen appears in Absalom, Absalom!. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...He married Miss Rosa’s much-older sister Ellen and had a son (Henry) and a daughter (Judith) with her. His children should’ve cared for him in old age, but instead “they destroyed...
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...starved to death there. Her nephew Henry served in the same company as his sister, Judith’s, fiancé. Henry later shot the fiancé at the house the night before the wedding while...
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...die “in that house for which she had exchanged pride and peace,” with the daughter (Judith) who was widowed despite never being a bride, and the son (Henry), “a murderer and...
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...up was kept secret from the women. Rosa saw a lot during those years, like Judith’s marriage being prohibited for seemingly no reason, and Henry “practically fling[ing] the bloody corpse of...
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Rosa laments having been too young at the time for the story of Ellen, Judith, and Henry to be more than “an ogre-tale.” When Ellen, before her death, asked Rosa...
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Rosa will always remember the first time she saw Thomas and Ellen’s children, Judith and Henry, arrive in the carriage. She’d been three and had woken up that morning...
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...to see Ellen. In this story, she is four and asks her father which room Judith is in, when she really means to ask what Judith saw when she saw “the...
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...to leave so she and Sutpen can talk in private. Then she asks Sutpen where Judith is. He claims not to know, and he isn’t lying—rather, “his own triumph” has blinded...
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Chapter 3
...Compson continues his telling of Sutpen’s story. He explains that Rosa went to live with Judith at Sutpen’s Hundred after Mr. Coldfield died in 1864. It had been Ellen’s dying wish...
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...request.” Mr. Compson explains that Sutpen returned in 1866 to find Rosa living there with Judith and Clytie (short for Clytemnestra, the daughter Sutpen had with one of the enslaved women...
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...the four or five times per year that Ellen would visit Mr. Coldfield’s house with Judith and Henry, the spinster aunt would create an atmosphere of “conspiracy,” in which Mr. Coldfield...
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...Mr. Coldfield never explains his decision. It could be that there’s no point now that Judith and Henry are grown up and Henry is away at college in Oxford, Mississippi.
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Rosa won’t see Sutpen again for many years, but she sees a lot more of Judith and Ellen. Ellen is in her late thirties now and thriving, having finally accepted what’s...
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The summer that Judith is 17, she and Ellen head to Memphis to buy Judith clothing for her trousseau....
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...about him. Ellen seems to consider it a given that a romance will develop between Judith and Bon.
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Hearing Ellen talk about Bon, Rosa—“the spinster doomed for life at sixteen”—isn’t jealous of Judith. Nor does she feel sorry for herself. (When Ellen told Quentin’s grandmother about Bon, Mr....
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Ellen has been telling the town all about Judith’s engagement to Charles Bon. Then, one day, something happens: Bon and Henry leave without saying...
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...in town attributes Henry’s abrupt departure to his youth or his being a Sutpen. Meanwhile, Judith and Sutpen continue to ride into town together and act normal, which means the argument...
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Despite Henry’s abrupt departure, Rosa carries on as though nothing is wrong, continuing to sew Judith’s wedding dress. Then the Civil War begins, and Colonel Sartoris and Sutpen’s regiment heads to...
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Though going to live with Judith at Sutpen’s Hundred would be the most practical choice for Rosa, she doesn’t do this...
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Chapter 4
...was “at least an intending bigamist even if not an out and out blackguard,” and Judith would find a picture of Bon’s wife and child on his dead body. And out...
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It was Henry, Mr. Compson explains, who held all the cards. Judith didn’t know what happened in the study on Christmas Eve and wouldn’t know until they...
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...Sutpen, arrived seemingly without a past, and he mystifies Mr. Compson. Though he easily charmed Judith and Henry, he immediately became “completely enigmatic” and “withdrawn” the moment he realized Sutpen would...
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Bon loved Judith—though, Mr. Compson adds, Sutpen would learn that Bon had professed his love to others before...
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...who got carried away and acted irrationally. Mr. Compson ponders whether Henry’s protective attitude toward Judith’s virginity may in fact have been “the pure and perfect incest,” in which Henry “destroy[ed]”...
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Mr. Compson suggests that Henry witnessed the entirety of Judith and Bon’s courtship, for there was no time or opportunity for them to have been...
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Mr. Compson continues his story. After Henry and Bon leave that Christmas morning, Judith doesn’t see Bon for four years. And during that time, Bon doesn’t send Judith a...
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...(Mr. Compson speculates that Bon must have realized that this is his chance to woo Judith.) Of course, by this point Sutpen must have already found out about “the octoroon mistress...
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In Mr. Compson’s telling, after that Christmas, Judith starts sending letters to Bon, and Henry reads them “without jealousy,” and in the process...
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...return to Sutpen’s Hundred. By this point, Ellen has already told everyone in town about Judith and Bon’s engagement. Then the outburst on Christmas Eve happens, and Henry and Bon leave...
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...some of their peers have organized at college. Henry (in Mr. Compson’s telling) writes to Judith to update her about his and Bon’s situation. Meanwhile, Henry doesn’t let Bon out of...
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In the present, Judith remains a mystery to Mr. Compson: it’s not as though Bon tried to “corrupt her...
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...and is buried under a massive marble monument Sutpen brought from Charleston, South Carolina. Then Judith’s grandfather Mr. Coldfield dies, having starved to death in his attic, and Judith likely invites...
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...speaking. From reading the letter, he assures Quentin, Quentin will understand that Bon did love Judith, though the letters that came before this one were full of floral and romantic—yet ultimately...
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...of the hardship and suffering he’s experienced serving in the war. Then he declares to Judith, “We have waited long enough.” But Bon can’t say when he’ll be back. Cryptically, Bon...
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Bon’s letter continues, restating that he can’t tell Judith when he’ll be back. He notes that he wrote his letter “with the best […]...
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In the present, Quentin finishes reading the letter. Mr. Compson explains that Clytie and Judith got to work making Judith’s wedding gown after Judith received this letter. They made the...
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Chapter 5
...with her “Sutpen coffee-colored face,” like that of a “sphinx.” Then Rosa calls out to Judith but receives no answer.
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...shout for Clytie not to touch her, and call her the n-word. Rosa remembers how Judith and Clytie would play together and even sleep in the same bed together as children,...
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...did love him, it would be as a mother’s love for a child—not the way Judith loved him (or how everyone thought Judith loved him). She never even saw him outside...
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Rosa’s story flashes forward to the day she arrives at Sutpen’s Hundred following Bon’s murder. Judith encounters Rosa standing before “the closed door which [Rosa] was not to enter.” Then Judith...
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Rosa, Judith, and Clytie carry the coffin out of the house that afternoon. Judith’s face is blank...
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...waits for Sutpen to return—not to marry him, as the townspeople will say—but because for Judith, Clytie, and Rosa, he’s “the only reason for continuing to exist,” for the women know...
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...rebuilding Sutpen’s Hundred. They talk about Henry, albeit “quietly.” They never speak of Bon, though Judith sometimes goes to clear the leaves from his grave.
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Sutpen arrives home and greets Judith, who remains rigid and silent. The two of them speak in clipped sentences, with Judith...
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...how he, too, cannot walk through “that door.” He imagines the interaction between Henry and Judith when Henry told Judith about Bon’s murder. Then Rosa interrupts Quentin’s daydreaming to tell him...
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Chapter 6
...the story Quentin has told him. After turning Henry against Bon, prohibiting Bon’s marriage to Judith, poisoning Henry against Bon, and “doom[ing Judith] to spinsterhood” by manipulating Henry into murdering. Bon,...
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...kills Sutpen with a scythe. The body is found later that night and returned to Judith, who decides he should be buried in a cedar grove at the Methodist church where...
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...of Ellen Coldfield Sutpen and Thomas Sutpen. Mr. Compson explains that Sutpen bought them when Judith informed him of Ellen’s death. He ordered them from Italy, wanting only the finest quality....
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...about the other three gravestones, which belong to Charles Bon, Charles Etienne Saint-Valery Bon, and Judith Sutpen. Mr. Compson urges Quentin to think about it: “Who would have paid for them?”...
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Mr. Compson next describes an afternoon in the summer of 1870—the summer Judith sold the store. In Mr. Compson’s telling, Quentin’s grandfather witnesses the arrival of Bon’s mistress—whom...
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After Bon’s widow and her child, Charles Etienne, return to New Orleans, Clytie (or maybe Judith) keeps tabs on them and goes to New Orleans to fetch Charles Etienne after Bon’s...
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Quentin’s grandfather isn’t sure who—Judith or Clytie—tells Charles Etienne he must be Black. Before this, the concept of race was...
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Five years later, Judith, now in her forties, goes to the courthouse to retrieve Charles Etienne, who is handcuffed...
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Judith waits outside Quentin’s grandfather’s office while Charles Etienne and Quentin’s grandfather speak. Quentin’s grandfather asks...
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...Charles Etienne’s son in the old slave cabin on land that Charles Etienne rents from Judith. He fixes up the cabin and lives there with his family, flaunting his wife’s dark...
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Judith pleads with Charles Etienne to renounce his wife and child (Jim Bond) and go to...
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But nobody really knows what words Judith and Charles Etienne exchanged that day; certainly, Quentin’s grandfather doesn’t know. He only knows the...
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Charles Etienne later falls ill with yellow fever. Judith moves him into the house and cares for him, and eventually she catches the disease...
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...expresses disbelief that “Aunt Rosa” could think that there was someone else living there—after all, Judith and Bon are both dead, and Henry is still on the run. Was there really...
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Chapter 7
...fight between Sutpen and Henry (and the reason Sutpen prohibited the marriage between Bon and Judith) was about Bon’s relationship with his mistress (using an outdated racial term to describe her)....
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...stay in his house for the duration of the vacation. Ellen arranges for Bon and Judith’s engagement even before Bon arrives—she might have gotten the idea in her head from the...
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After Christmas, Henry and Bon return to Oxford for school, and Bon’s letters to Judith start to arrive at Sutpen’s Hundred. Ellen, meanwhile, starts spreading news of the supposed “engagement”...
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...his discussion with Quentin’s grandfather about what to do about Bon’s reappearance and intentions with Judith.
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Sometime later, Judith hears Sutpen leave the house and figures he’s headed toward the stable. It’s unclear how...
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Chapter 8
...sense of Quentin’s story. He speculates that Sutpen sent for Henry and told him that Judith and Bon couldn’t marry because Bon was their brother, and Henry instantly replied, “You lie.”...
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...that day. Shreve says that it wasn’t just the fact that Bon was Henry and Judith’s brother that Sutpen disclosed to Henry—Sutpen also told Henry that Bon knew about this all...
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Shreve, in the present, guesses that Ellen must have executed her own scheme to marry Judith to Bon, something she’d been planning since Henry first mentioned Bon in one of his...
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...to confirm the truth once and for all. On this visit, Bon continues to court Judith, and they exchange their first kiss—but nothing else happens. Henry and Bon leave two days...
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...for him. It’s at this point (Shreve guesses) that Bon finally starts writing letters to Judith, with “Charles Bon” written clearly on the outside for Sutpen to see. Bon wonders if...
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...Quentin’s imagined version of the story, she already knows that Bon is “in love” with Judith—Henry doesn’t even need to tell her. Shreve and Quentin imagine that Bon must have taken...
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...be shocked that Bon is still planning to go through with his plan to marry Judith to get back at Sutpen. Bon, in their retelling, explains that he waited years for...
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...the idea of Bon marrying their sister. Then it’s Christmas 1861. They haven’t heard from Judith because Henry still won’t let Judith write to Bon. The University Grays are organizing on...
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...die so that Henry won’t have to find out what Bon plans to do about Judith. Bon pleads with Henry to just tell him it’s okay for him to go to...
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...way into Carolina. Bon, who has still not decided what he wants to do about Judith, realizes why he hasn’t been able to decide: he’s still holding out hope that Sutpen...
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...all but lost the war, and Bon has finally made up his mind to marry Judith. He tells Henry, and Henry is relieved—not about the incest, but that finally a decision...
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...him but doesn’t. After this—and after Henry has given his permission for Bon to marry Judith—Bon writes to Judith to tell her that it’s time for them to marry. Henry reads...
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...a pause, Sutpen tells Henry that he knows Henry has agreed to let Bon marry Judith. Henry says nothing. Sutpen tells Henry he can’t let the marriage happen—not because of the...
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...all Sutpen needed to do was acknowledge him as his son. He would’ve stopped pursuing Judith right then and there; Sutpen didn’t need to disclose Bon’s Black ancestry to Henry to...
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...as Bon pleads with him to shoot him. Henry pleads with Bon not to marry Judith, but Bon is adamant that Henry will have to stop him.
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...that Bon and Henry rode to Sutpen’s Hundred together, approaching the gate side by side. Judith and Clytie heard the shot ring out when Henry shot Bon. Wash Jones helped them...
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Shreve, in the present, speculates that Bon was trying to protect Judith when he removed Judith’s picture from the metal case Judith had given him and replaced...
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Chapter 9
...end: Charles Bon and his mother killed “old Tom,” Charles Bon and Bon’s mistress killed Judith, and Charles Bon and Clytie killed Henry. Shreve notes that just one Sutpen remains now:...
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