Thomas Sutpen

Thomas Sutpen is the focal character of William Faulkner's 1936 novel Absalom, Absalom! Sutpen arrives in Faulkner's imaginary Yoknapatawpha County in Mississippi in the 1830s and established a 64,000 acre (100 square miles) plantation, Sutpen's Hundred, in an attempt to create his own personal dynasty. It is eventually revealed that Sutpen was born to a poor white family in what becomes West Virginia before moving to the Tidewater region of Virginia where he was first privy to the aristocratic plantation culture of the Antebellum South.

When he was fourteen, he was instructed by a black servant to only use the back door of a plantation when running errands for his father. This led him to renounce his family and social position. He travelled to the West Indies to build his own plantation and start a lineage, in accordance with his "design". The discovery that his wife was part-black, hence making his son Charles Bon part black, caused him to relocate to Yoknapatawpha County and build a new plantation. The sins of his past and indiscriminate sexual practices eventually caused the downfall of his empire by the early 20th century.

The short story "Wash", which was later incorporated into the seventh chapter of Absalom, Absalom!, focuses on the death of Thomas Sutpen.

References

• Kirk, Robert W.; Klotz, Marvin (1965). Faulkner's People: A complete guide and index to the characters and fiction of William Faulkner. Los Angeles: University of California Press.