Unnamed Lawyer

The "hired lawyer" (245) who seems to be responsible for sending Charles Bon on a collision course with the Sutpen family is an extremely elusive figure. He may have been the "legal advisor and man of business" to Bon's mother in New Orleans in the 1850s (252) - or he may have been invented by Shreve and Quentin in a Harvard dorm room in 1910. Outside Chapter 8, the only hint of his existence is in Mr. Compson's ambiguous reference to "the shadowy figure of a legal guardian" in Bon's life (58). In their reconstruction of the story in Chapter 8, however, Shreve and Quentin bring this character vividly to life as a materialistic schemer, more venal than evil, who keeps track of Thomas Sutpen's mounting wealth on a "secret paper" in a "secret drawer" in a "secret safe" in his office (241), where he sits "adding and subtracting the money" he can make (247) by manipulating "his private mad female millionaire" and her victimized son (241).