Colonel Sutpen
Text:
Character Key:
Display Name:
Colonel Sutpen
Sort Name:
Sutpen, Colonel
AKA:
Thomas Sutpen
Race:
White
Gender:
Male
Class:
Upper Class
Rank:
Major
Vitality:
Dies
Family:
Sutpen
Family (new):
Occupation:
Management
Specific Job:
Plantation Owner; Store Owner
First Mentioned:
Cause of Death:
Murder
Real?:
No
Other Texts:
Biography:
Sutpen is called "Colonel Sutpen" by the narrator (536), "Kernel" by Wash Jones (538), and "Cunnel" by his slaves, but nowhere in the story is he given a first name. When he returns as the central character in Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! (1936), he is Thomas Sutpen. In both texts Sutpen owns a large plantation in Yoknapatawpha, is a Confederate officer in the Civil War, earning citations from Robert E. Lee, is obsessed with producing a male heir, has a female child with the poor white Milly Jones, and is killed by her grandfather. However, unlike the novel, this story gives no information about Sutpen's pre-Yoknapatawpha biography, nor any reason to question his aristocratic pedigree.
.
Individual or Group:
Individual
Character changes class in this text:
Date of Death:
Monday, January 1, 1872 to Tuesday, December 31, 1872
digyok:node/character/2011