First American Sutpen
Text:
Character Key:
Display Name:
First American Sutpen
Sort Name:
Sutpen, First American
Race:
White
Gender:
Male
Class:
Poor White
Rank:
Peripheral
Vitality:
Dead
Family:
Sutpen
Family (new):
First Mentioned:
Origin:
England
Biography:
"The first Sutpen" in North America, according to Quentin's narrative in Absalom!, "probably" arrived in Jamestown on a "ship from the Old Bailey" - i.e. a ship transporting convicted criminals from London to the British colony of Virginia (180). It's not clear who Quentin's source for this information is, or if it's reliable, what crime this Sutpen founding father was sentenced for. (In Georgia, where British prisons furnished many of the original settlers at the same time as Sutpen is supposed to have arrived in Virginia, the transported convicts were mainly imprisoned for debt; this fact was well known, but there's no way to know if Faulkner expected his readers to apply it to the Sutpen story.)
Individual or Group:
Individual
Character changes class in this text:
digyok:node/character/15360