Sutpen's eccentric actions cause pain for others, but his tragic fate at the end indicates the carnivalesque reversal. Being a character in a historical novel, Sutpen’s doom at the end surpasses the personal to encompass the fate of the people he represents. In other words, his narrative acquires an allegorical dimension: He is the typical embodiment of eccentricity as he carries his "design" at the cost of human lives and their dignity. Sutpen’s tale of rise and fall is the story of the American South which rises at the expense of black labor and their subsequent demise after the Civil war. James Snead (1986) argues that “The name ‘Sutpen’ is exactly a mnemonic epithet itself, a simplifying index for the town’s vicarious experiences” (128). The collapse of Sutpen's dynasty and the reversal of his fate involve universal dimensions. This situation corresponds with the essence of carnival spirit that has what Bakhtin calls a “universal” dimension as they aim to better life conditions and free people. Because the carnival is not concerned with the one but rather the global, it becomes the story of all the minorities and the oppressed in the whole world not only the American South.
Clearly, Sutpen’s story of excess from its beginning to its end …show more content…
In Absalom, the abolition of slavery empowers the marginalized characters and gives them a voice. Sutpen’s mulatto daughter Clytie, for instance, has been marginalized throughout the whole narrative plot, but at the end she makes her statement when she puts her father's mansion into fire and kills her half brother Henry. Wash Jones is another marginalized member of the "unofficial" world who causes a turning point in finalizing the events of the novel. Wash Jones succeeds in expressing his agonies and disobedience of the white world's servitude when he murders the chief oppressor of the “official” world Thomas
Clearly, Sutpen’s story of excess from its beginning to its end …show more content…
In Absalom, the abolition of slavery empowers the marginalized characters and gives them a voice. Sutpen’s mulatto daughter Clytie, for instance, has been marginalized throughout the whole narrative plot, but at the end she makes her statement when she puts her father's mansion into fire and kills her half brother Henry. Wash Jones is another marginalized member of the "unofficial" world who causes a turning point in finalizing the events of the novel. Wash Jones succeeds in expressing his agonies and disobedience of the white world's servitude when he murders the chief oppressor of the “official” world Thomas