Unnamed French Architect

Character Key Number: 
981
Display Name: 
Unnamed French Architect
Sort Name: 
Unnamed French Architect
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
Yes
Biography: 

The architect who designs the mansion and grounds at Sutpen's Hundred is identified in Absalom! as "French," but in this novel he comes to Yoknapatawpha from the French Caribbean: "all the way from Martinique" (26). When he is mentioned again in Requiem for a Nun he is identified as the "tame Parisian architect" (30). The description of him in that novel - a small man "with humorous sardonic undefeated eyes which had seen everything and believed none of it" (30) - also fits the character who appears in Absalom! In the earlier text he tries to run away from Sutpen but is "hunted down and caught in turn by the negroes" - i.e. Sutpen's slaves (10).