Charles Stuart Compson

Submitted by sfr on Sun, 2019-01-13 08:47
Character Key Number: 
45
Display Name: 
Charles Stuart Compson
Sort Name: 
Compson, Charles Stuart
Parent Character Key: 
Quentin Compson I
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
No
Biography: 

According to the early genealogy that Faulkner's 1946 "Appendix" creates for the Compson family, Charles Stuart Compson is the first member to be born in the new world. Named after Charles Stuart the Young Pretender, for whom his father fought in Scotland, Charles Stuart Compson served under the British commander Banastre Tarleton in the American Revolutionary War; Charles Stuart was thus part of the military serving the monarchy his father had formerly opposed. After he is "left for dead" on a colonial battlefield (326), and with an amputated leg, he joins his son and father in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, where he tries a series of ventures: teaching school, gambling, and plotting against the American government to give Spain the Mississippi Valley. Charles Stuart is notably "vocal and vociferant," a trait that contributes to his self-imposed exile from the United States (327).

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