Toomer intends to use Fern’s body as a form of racial sacrifice for the benefit of society. Fern’s complex identity embodies the sorrows of African Americans and Jews who are overwhelmed by the intense oppression caused by white supremacy. Toomer centralizes his focus on Fern’s peculiar eyes and the atrocities which she has witnessed. Her eyes are perceived as “strange” and “that they sought nothing” (Toomer 18). With the racial hybridity of African American and Jewish heritage, Fern’s strange eyes represent her mystic ability to be a historical witness to her people’s oppression. Her “eyes desired nothing that you could give her” because, essentially, there is nothing that can erase the pain and oppression that her people have experienced.
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Hence, Sutpen’s need to purify himself of Charles Bon’s existence reads like a Greek Tragedy. Charles Bon’s existence, dead or alive, haunts Sutpen considering Charles Bon’s troubling racial identity predetermines Sutpen’s design. As Christy A. Cannarito states in her work” Degeneration, Historical Determinism, and William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!” argues that Sutpen’s design “exerts a determining force on Henry and Bon without their knowing the design exists as they act out the racial politics of the South” (Cannarito 17). Sutpen as a modern tragic hero shows arrogance which is driven by the notion of being entitled to aristocratic gains. Miscegenation, then, triggers the fate of all those involved in Sutpen’s design. Sutpen will utilize Southern racial codes to pit brother against brother by way of attempting to save the fate of his …show more content…
He is forced to act to protect his sister from “the nigger that’s going to sleep with your sister” (Faulkner 283). According to Southern moral codes, Henry must react violently to Charles Bon’s impending threats of annihilating white womanhood. To destroy white womanhood, which births the white race, is to essentially destroy Henry. Then, Henry’s act of murder signifies a significant racial sacrifice which is meant to keep the Sutpen’s family’s whiteness intact. He must complete the fatal task of murder to preserve Judith’s virtue and Southern honor. To allow Charles Bon to marry his sister means that the South is ‘without caste, there could be no whiteness” (2). It is Charles Bon’s deadly fate, by cause of miscegenation which impedes on Sutpen’s need to manipulate Henry to carry out the act of fratricide so he may sacrifice Charles Bon for the benefit of the
Hence, Sutpen’s need to purify himself of Charles Bon’s existence reads like a Greek Tragedy. Charles Bon’s existence, dead or alive, haunts Sutpen considering Charles Bon’s troubling racial identity predetermines Sutpen’s design. As Christy A. Cannarito states in her work” Degeneration, Historical Determinism, and William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!” argues that Sutpen’s design “exerts a determining force on Henry and Bon without their knowing the design exists as they act out the racial politics of the South” (Cannarito 17). Sutpen as a modern tragic hero shows arrogance which is driven by the notion of being entitled to aristocratic gains. Miscegenation, then, triggers the fate of all those involved in Sutpen’s design. Sutpen will utilize Southern racial codes to pit brother against brother by way of attempting to save the fate of his …show more content…
He is forced to act to protect his sister from “the nigger that’s going to sleep with your sister” (Faulkner 283). According to Southern moral codes, Henry must react violently to Charles Bon’s impending threats of annihilating white womanhood. To destroy white womanhood, which births the white race, is to essentially destroy Henry. Then, Henry’s act of murder signifies a significant racial sacrifice which is meant to keep the Sutpen’s family’s whiteness intact. He must complete the fatal task of murder to preserve Judith’s virtue and Southern honor. To allow Charles Bon to marry his sister means that the South is ‘without caste, there could be no whiteness” (2). It is Charles Bon’s deadly fate, by cause of miscegenation which impedes on Sutpen’s need to manipulate Henry to carry out the act of fratricide so he may sacrifice Charles Bon for the benefit of the