Thomas Sutpen's Sister 1

Submitted by sfr on Sun, 2019-01-13 16:46
Character Key Number: 
88
Display Name: 
Thomas Sutpen's Sister 1
Sort Name: 
Sutpen, Sister of Thomas 1
Parent Character Key: 
Thomas Sutpen's Father
Thomas Sutpen's Mother
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
No
Biography: 

Thomas Sutpen has at least two sisters: according to the narrative in Absalom!, "one of the sisters" altered their father's hand-me-down clothes to fit the young Thomas (185). This entry is for the "sister" who, during the family's move from the mountains to the Tidewater region of Virginia, gives birth in "a cowshed" to an illegitimate child (183), and gets pregnant again, though "still unmarried" (181), while they are still traveling. Whether she is also the sister who later refuses to "give way" to a rich family's carriage (187), and/or the sister whom Thomas sees still later, after he has been turned away from the big house, as "shapeless in a calico dress and a pair of old man's shoes unlaced and flapping about her bare ankles and broad in the beam as a cow" (191) - these are questions that the text doesn't answer.

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