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Sutpen’s Design
In Absalom, Absalom! characters’ references to ghosts and the supernatural symbolize the weight of inherited historical trauma that haunts the South and its inhabitants in the aftermath of the American Civil War. Throughout the novel, Quentin repeatedly references the “ghosts” that have haunted his youth, describing the experience of having grown up around elders who were alive to see—and to mourn—the height and decline of the pre-war South. He describes the region’s pre-war culture as “ghost-times” and the older generation who stubbornly clings to that culture as ghosts. He also laments that he, too, must exist as a ghost simply by virtue of being born in a place that can’t let go of its past.
Ghost imagery also evokes the pointlessness of clinging to a long-dead past—ghosts can haunt and impart misery on the living, yet they cannot effect tangible change. Miss Rosa’s decades-long grudge against the long-dead Thomas Sutpen, for instance, only serves to perpetuate her misery and alienate her from the rest of the world—following his insulting her, she lives the rest of her life as a shut-in, scorning events of her past she has no ability to change. After she dies, Mr. Compson writes in a letter to Quentin that his one hope for her is that, in the afterlife, she might be reunited with the absent dead against whom she held her grudges in life—and thus, in dying, gain “actual recipients of the hatred and the pity” that went unreceived during the years she spent fuming, all alone in her decrepit house and in her bitterness.
Ghosts and the Supernatural Quotes in Absalom, Absalom!
The Absalom, Absalom! quotes below all refer to the symbol of Ghosts and the Supernatural . 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 1 Quotes
Then hearing would reconcile and he would seem to listen to two separate Quentins now—the Quentin Compson preparing for Harvard in the South, the deep South dead since 1865 and peopled with garrulous outraged baffled ghosts, listening, having to listen, to one of the ghosts which had refused to lie still even longer than most had, telling him about old ghost-times;
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This passage happens early in the story. Quentin is sitting in Miss Rosa’s stifling office as she tells him the story of her family’s history with Thomas Sutpen, the novel’s antagonist. For the past 43 years, Miss Rosa has held a grudge against Sutpen for destroying her family, and for reasons that Quentin has yet to (nor will ever) understand, she’s decided it’s finally time to lift the burden of that grudge from her shoulders by telling her story—and she’s selected Quentin as her audience. This passage illustrates Quentin’s shifting focus as he listens to Miss Rosa speak. As she Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia soluta itaque. Deleniti nisi earum. Ad tenetur laboriosam. Eum accusamus harum. Accusantium iusto voluptas. Totam quae corporis. Impedit non ut. Incidunt rerum est. Aperiam dolorem
His childhood was full of them; his very body was an empty hall echoing with sonorous defeated names; he was not a being, an entity, he was a commonwealth. He was a barracks filled with stubborn back-looking ghosts still recovering, even forty-three years afterward, from the fever which had cured the disease, waking from the fever without even knowing that it had been the fever itself which they had fought against and not the sickness, looking with stubborn recalcitrance backward beyond the fever and into the disease with actual regret, weak from the fever yet free of the disease and not even aware that the freedom was that of impotence.
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As Quentin Compson listens to Rosa Coldfield tell her story about the long-dead Thomas Sutpen and the curse he supposedly cast on her family, he thinks about all the “stubborn back-looking ghosts” who have kept the dead alive. Quentin has lived in the South all his life, and though he was born well after the Confederacy’s loss of the Civil War and the emancipation of the region’s enslaved people, the legacy of that haunting past lives on in a lingering pre-war culture and the people of that era who stubbornly try to sustain a former way of life (“the fever Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Si
Maybe you have to know anybody awful well to love them but when you have hated somebody for forty-three years you will know them awful well so maybe it’s better then maybe it’s fine then because after forty-three years they cant any longer surprise you or make you either very contented or very mad.
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Quentin Compson listens to Rosa Coldfield tell her story about Thomas Sutpen, his rise and fall, and the havoc he wreaked on the Coldfield family. It’s a story she’s been keeping to herself for decades—ever since Sutpen insulted her and she returned to her late father’s house to live out the rest of her days as a shut-in. Throughout her account, Miss Rosa will condemn Sutpen for his asocial personality, his exploitation of her family, and his underlying cruelty. As she makes clear in this passage, she has nursed a grudge against Sutpen for the past 43 years as a Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. No
Chapter 9 Quotes
Wait. Listen. I’m not trying to be funny, smart. I just want to understand it if I can and I dont know how to say it better. Because it’s something my people haven’t got. Or if we have got it, it all happened long ago across the water and so now there aint anything to look at every day to remind us of it. We dont live among defeated grandfathers and freed slaves […] and bullets in the dining room table and such, to be always reminding us to never forget.
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Quentin and Shreve are sitting in their dorm room at Harvard as Shreve repeats back the story of the South that Quentin has just told him. Shreve has been making glib jokes throughout, treating the story’s subjects as fictional characters and making light of topics that affect Quentin so deeply that he can hardly speak of them aloud. In this passage, Shreve defends (or at least explains) why he has responded to Quentin’s story the way he has while also reaffirming his genuine desire to understand the deeper significance of Quentin’s story, at least as well as he can as Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia soluta itaque. Deleniti nisi earum. Ad tenetur laboriosam. Eum accusamus harum. Accusantium iusto voluptas. Totam quae corporis. Impedit non ut. Incidunt rerum est. Aperiam doloremque eum. Ani
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Ghosts and the Supernatural Symbol Timeline in Absalom, Absalom!
The timeline below shows where the symbol Ghosts and the Supernatural appears in Absalom, Absalom!. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
Quentin listens to Rosa speak. Her voice sounds as though a ghost is haunting it, and Quentin’s attention wavers. Her story forces him to contend with his...
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Chapter 9
...and of the commiseration” but will instead join them, so that they “are no longer ghosts but are actual people to be actual recipients of the hatred and the pity.” It...
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