Names in Absalom, Absalom!

Abstract

5 7 tHEN Quentin tells Shreve about General Compson's theory YV that Thomas Sutpen bestowed an invented surname on his Haitian son, we see the culmination of lively curiosity about Sutpen names that has persisted through three generations of Compsons. A deeply meaningful activity in Absalom, the Compsons' discussions about naming have nevertheless gone unnoticed in criticism except as troublesome inconsistencies in the novel's patterns of disclosure. General Compson's theory, it has been said, implies that he knew all along that Charles Bon was Sutpen's son.1 Such is not the case, however. Sutpen did tell General Compson that he abandoned son of tainted lineage, but he did not reveal the child's name-or any other names from his Haitian past. His silence on this topic led General Compson, and then the younger Compsons, to speculate about these withheld names, and about the naming practices at Sutpen's Hundred as well. These conjectures form motif that defines Sutpen's tragic flaw. Faulkner introduced the naming motif early in the first chapter, where the omniscient narrator begins to quote Rosa at the point where she asserts that He wasn't gentleman and then produces as evidence Sutpen's appearance in the community with a name which nobody ever heard before, knew for certain was his own.2 Mr. Compson's subsequent account of Sutpen's arrest during his courtship of Ellen's good name leaves no doubt about the community's opinion of him as one who might on occasion find it expedient to invent new name for himself. Years later General Compson would refine this view of Sutpen into the theory that he had invented surname for his first son.