Absalom is the violence resulting from class, national and racial divides. Absalom is particularly the violence between black Southerners and white Southerners as a means to replace the violence whites would wish to inflict on wealthy whites. Thomas Sutpen’s barn battles with his “wild negroes” as well as his encounter with a slave at the front door in his youth, epitomize the desire to take revenge and violently transfer it. His barn fights are revealed in a new light. The appearance of the Klan demonstrates this transference at a higher social level. Ironically, Thomas Sutpen’s violence against his enemies and objects of jealousy was the violence that killed him when Wash lost control of his rage. What started as a division of class between Sutpen’s mountain families and the South’s plantation royalty quickly turns to the divisions and antagonisms of the African slaves by the white poor.
Sutpen and many other poor whites feel dissatisfaction at how the plantation owners’ slaves look and are fed. Sutpen had learned to distinguish between black and white men in the South. He was also learning to differentiate between white and white men. This difference was not measured by how many whiskey you can drink or whether you lift anvils. One of the major differences was the presence of slaves. He observed that a nigger wore better clothes than his father, sisters and brother ever had or expected to wear every day (184). The whites’ house was not as well-built and kept as well as those of the nigger slaves (185). He admired the shoes, even though he was innocent. That innocence is not possible for his father or other relatives who feel anger and hatred towards the African slaves. Sutpen understands that the violence is futile and they will not respond. He understands “you could strike them…and they wouldn’t hit back…But they (the niggers), were not it, so you didn’t want to” (186). Sutpen is left with a sense of guilt and the same feeling of frustration as his father, 188, after the nigger had told him. He has to do something. Like his father beating the slaves. (Not the monkey-nigger. It was not the same nigger as it had been his father’s nigger”; but, the man with no shoes in the hammock (190). But his voice says it wouldn’t do any good. The wealthy owner isn’t the end of violence. It’s beyond individuals. Sutpen realises that even the rich owner doesn’t have to be the last victim.
Sutpen does however engage in fights against his Negroes to release some stress and frustration. He knows that the fights won’t change anything, but he can’t help but feel the need to use violence and physical contact when confronted with an abstract enemy. His design is failing in the end, and this continued brutality may be a reflection of his mountain mentality. The last picture we see of Sutpen, his desperate desire to reproduce (190), is what the rich owner must be seeing. He couldn’t fight them, he could only battle slaves. Fighting the Haitian revolution was futile as he fought for his mixed marriage with the son who is ultimately Sutpen’s downfall. It did not help his reputation, as it revealed his similarity with the slaves he now works with. Transferring violence on the slaves did not help anyone and was not his plan.
Work Cite
Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom. Vintage International published New York in 1986. Print.
