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Sutpen family
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Sutpen family

fictional characters
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Article History

Sutpen family, fictional family whose rise and fall is told in several novels by William Faulkner, chiefly Absalom, Absalom! (1936). One of the families of Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha county, Miss., the Sutpens trace their origins to Thomas Sutpen, a plantation owner who has risen from his poverty in West Virginia. He marries Ellen Coldfield on the road to respectability with the dream of founding a dynasty and has two children, Judith and Henry, by her. Charles Bon is his son by a Haitian woman, and Clytemnestra (Clytie) is his daughter by a slave.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.