William faulkner biography absalom absalom analysis

1936 novel by William Faulkner

Absalom, Absalom! is a novel by the American author William Faulkner, first published in 1936. Taking place before, during, and after the American Civil War, it is a story about three families of the American South, with a focus on the life of Thomas Sutpen.

Absalom, Absalom!, along with The Sound and the Fury, helped Faulkner win the Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 1949.^[2] In 2009, a panel of judges called Absalom, Absalom! the best Southern novel of all time.^[3]

Plot summary

Absalom, Absalom! details the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen, a white man born into poverty in western Virginia who moves to Mississippi with the dual aims of gaining wealth and becoming a powerful family patriarch.

The story is told entirely in flashbacks narrated mostly by Quentin Compson to his roommate at Harvard College, Shreve, who frequently contributes his own suggestions and surmises. The narration of Ro