"It did not matter... which one had been doing the
talking"1: the relationship of Shreve to Quentin in
Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!
by Monica Signoretti
In the second part of Absalom, Absalom! Faulkner introduces a character that didn’t
appear at all in the first part of the book: Shreve. At first, he seems to have appeared in the
novel, in order to provide Quentin with a reason to tell the story of the Sutpens, the tale told
to him before he left Mississippi for college. But, further reading of the second half of the
novel, brings the realization that Shreve’s presence means much more than that. He
intervenes in Quentin's tale and offers an additional point of view from which to consider
the events on which the narration focuses. In doing so, he magnifies the story of the Sutpens
beyond its initial meaning and enriches it with his imagination. Moreover, his presence is
necessary to create a parallel between Shreve and Quentin, who become the primary
narrators, and Charles Bon and Henry Sutpen, who become their primary subjects.
Shreve's presence is both a help to the reader, who may already know him from The
Sound and the Fury, and can consider him a double of themselves, and an important means to
give the story universal value. He appears in Absalom, Absalom! at the beginning of Chapter
Six with Faulkner describing his overcoat sleeve, lightly dusted with snow. It is only after
this introduction, that Faulkner discloses whom the sleeve belongs to and where the scene is
taking place. In doing this, Faulkner surprises his readers and at the same time expects them
to recognize in Shreve the character that appeared in The Sound and the Fury, always in
connection with Quentin. Surprise, and the satisfaction of the reader’s expectations are
bound together, each reinforcing the other. In this context Faulkner seems to give to Shreve
a very definite function; time and again Shreve shifts from the individual plane of the history
of Sutpen's family to a broader inquiry about the South:
Tell about the South. What's it like there. What do they do there. Why do they
live there. Why do they live at all...(142)
Shreve genuinely enjoys Quentin's tale; he thinks “It's better than the
theatre...better than Ben Hur…”(176), underlining in this way his enjoyment of what is
being told and expressing an irony which will accompany him until his involvement and
participation in the story of the Sutpen family become overwhelming. He has distance from
the story, in a way that Quentin, who was born and grew up in the South, does not. Shreve
isn't emotionally involved, and so little does he understand the feelings that Quentin
associates with the South, that he thinks the word “hate” (303) can express his friend's
relationship with his land. On a few occasions his lack of familiarity with the imagery and
frame of mind of the South makes him misunderstand what's going on. Until Quentin says
it plainly, Shreve doesn't understand that Sutpen’s last attempt to have an heir fails because
1
Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!, p. 253.
Milly has a girl instead of a boy. For that same reason, he keeps calling Rosa Coldfield "aunt
Rosa", ignoring completely the specific meaning associated with this expression in the
South. However, Shreve’s disassociation from the ideology expressed by Sutpen, his role as
the outsider, asking questions and filling the gaps between the few events that form the
kernel of the whole story, corresponds to the reader, and at the same time, allows him to
advance the story. He is the “ignorant outsider” (84) that R. D. Parker sees in him, but he is
also much more, making a real difference in the development of the novel.
As soon as Shreve is introduced in Chapter Six we can see that he already knows
most of Sutpen's story. The letter Quentin receives from his father is only the opportunity to
talk once more about the events that had been haunting Quentin since he left Mississippi,
and his friend with him. Shreve already knows everything Mr. Compson told Quentin and
also something more: he already knows what Quentin discovered when he went to what
remained of Sutpen's Hundred with Miss Rosa. Only the reader is left in ignorance.
Although there are many hints of it, Henry's presence there is only known at the end of the
novel. But Shreve does much more than posses knowledge of what happened: he tells it
himself, revealing his involvement and offering a new point of view to a story told already by
different characters.
But why did Faulkner choose to place Shreve with Quentin in the novel? To answer
that question, it is necessary to discover why Shreve is so essential to the character of
Quentin. Probably the answer is bound up with the South and its oral culture. Quentin is
essentially a narrator; he takes part in the transmission of stories from his land's past through
oral narrative. To make transmission possible, it is essential that every storyteller find
someone who listens to his story, and that he perpetuate the tradition by becoming a
storyteller himself.
Moreover, Shreve's intervention in the narration shows how important his
imagination is in shaping the story of Sutpen, in the last section of the novel. The analysis
of these two characters, Quentin and Shreve, and of the way they approach the story they
are telling and creating, reveals at first two different attitudes towards the topic of their
narration. Quentin tells things that had already been told to him by his father, or by Miss
Rosa, underlining the importance of the oral tradition to which he belongs; Shreve makes
new connections and tries to imagine what had been long forgotten because nobody ever
told it. They represent memory and imagination, the skills necessary to remember a story
and tell it anew. So it is not by accident that during Chapter Eight, although it is Shreve
who does the talking, their voices mix together until it becomes impossible, and useless,
to try to distinguish them:
it might have been either of them and was in a sense both: both thinking as one, the
voice which happened to be speaking the thought only the thinking became audible,
vocal; the two of them creating between them, out of the rag-tag and the bob-ends
of old tales and talking, people who perhaps had never existed at all anywhere.…
(243)
The two characters, Quentin and Shreve, are also essential for another reason: only
their presence can balance the couple of Henry and Charles Bon. Because of this perfect
symmetry they seem to be the ideal narrative voice for their story. In particular, Quentin,
who knows so much about Henry both first-hand and through the tales of other characters,
seems to be bound to him also by the idea of incest. Readers of The Sound and the Fury will
recognize and remember that Quentin, and his sister Caddy, lived in a situation in many
respects similar to that governing Henry, Charles Bon, and Judith's relationship. Quentin
doesn't only listen to most of Henry's story; he is Henry, because he represents the same
psychological conflict. Less strong is the connection between Shreve and Charles Bon:
although in many respects they may seem so different, the little we know for certain about
Charles Bon requires all Shreve's imagination to attain the dimensions of a true story.
The identification of the two young men with the two half-brothers is so strong that
Faulkner represents them as if they might escape the boundaries of their personalities to
become the young men of fifty years earlier: "There was now not two of them but four..."
(236). Every individual experience is felt as a part of a broader experience:
Maybe we are both Father. Maybe nothing ever happens once and is finished.
Maybe happen is never once but like ripples maybe on water after the pebble
sinks... Yes, we are both Father. Or maybe Father and I are both Shreve,
maybe it took Father and me both to make Shreve or Shreve and me both to
make Father or maybe Thomas Sutpen to make all of us. (210)
But the presence of Shreve also helps to widen the story’s frame of reference beyond
the confines of the South. He usually views the South through his literary culture and he
finds a number of interesting analogies for Sutpen, the character who seems to inspire him
most. First of all he continues to call him, as Miss Rosa does, "The demon" (145 ff), the
exclamation with which he underlines some passages of Quentin's tale, and also “Beelzebub”
(145). In Chapter Six he compares him to a strange Agamemnon, who instead of losing his
daughter loses his wife, and then to a Pyramus refused by Thisbe-Miss Rosa (144). But the
character that he compares him to more than once is Faustus (145 ff), pursued by his
Creditor. In doing so, Faulkner not only joins Sutpen with one of the most meaningful
literary characters ever created, he also gives a very definite interpretation of Sutpen's life.
Moreover, Shreve seems to be more preoccupied than Quentin with making the
whole story "dramatically satisfying" (Muhlenfeld 173). To realize this goal, he tries to find
out what happened in all the gaps in Miss Rosa's and Mr. Compson's tale. The same purpose
leads him to imagine most of Charles Bon's life and to create from nothing two characters,
Charles’ mother (whom Shreve calls “Sabine”, with an ironical reference to her having been
abandoned by Sutpen) and her lawyer (243 ff). The same need probably pushes him to
introduce into the narration a series of episodes with the only function of offering a general
overview of the life and the beliefs of the South, essential to him to fully understand the
meaning of Sutpen family's destiny. For this purpose he remembers the stories about the
haunted house of Sutpen (172-173) and how slaves and children were afraid to go there
(152-153; 173-174).
From these observations we can see how important Shreve is in Absalom, Absalom!
Not only does he provide an opportunity to tell the whole story again and again, through
dialogue with Quentin, but his presence beside Quentin also is essential to create a parallel
between them, and Henry and Charles Bon, the two characters on whom their interest
focuses. Moreover, Shreve seems to complete Quentin: he seems to have more imagination
and is determined to think through the whole story over and over again until he finds
something that satisfies his need for drama. Shreve provides what Quentin alone could not
provide, and perhaps did not even truly want-a sense of an ending.
Works Cited
Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!, Vintage International, New York, 1990.
E. Muhlenfeld, “’We Have Waited Long Enough’: Judith Sutpen and Charles Bon”, in E. Muhlenfeld,
William Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom!” A Critical Casebook, New York 1984.
R. D. Parker, Absalom, Absalom! The Questioning of Fiction, Boston 1991.