Unnamed School Teacher 1

The teacher at the Tidewater school Sutpen attends in Absalom! is described, tautologically, as "the kind of teacher that would be teaching a one-room country school in a nest of Tidewater plantations" (195). Sutpen tells General Compson that the man "always looked dusty, as if he had been born and lived all his life in attics and store rooms" (195). The teacher assures Sutpen that what he read to the school about the West Indies was true because it was "from the book" - and even as a boy, Sutpen realizes that this teacher lacks "something which is necessary" to "invent" something, even a lie (196).