Moral Decadence of Thomas Sutpen in Actions toward Female Characters in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom

Abstract

Literature is a portrait of our real life and cannot be separated from the life itself because there is a close relationship between literature and life. One form of literary works besides poetry and drama is novel. Novel is lengthy fictitious prose narrative portraying character and representing an organized series of events and setting. Every novel is an account of life. It includes the conflicts, characters, actions, setting, plot, and theme. In this novel, Absalom, Absalom!, tells the story of Thomas Sutpen, the son of a poor white in western Virginia who has a grand design, and the effect of his actions has on future generations in Yoknapatawpha County. Sutpen represents the work ethics of the South, along with its decline and failures. This novel is about the South and shows the suffering, endurance, racial discrimination, decadence, and ruin in the life of the Sutpen family. This thesis discusses about the injustice of the woman’s exploitation as the development of the theme and explores Sutpen’s moral fallings that are shown by his actions toward the female characters. However, this thesis only focuses on the moral decadence of Thomas Sutpen in actions toward female characters, especially four female characters: Eulalia Bon, Ellen Coldfield, Miss Rosa Coldfield and Milly Jones. The purposes of writing this thesis are to comprehend William Faulkner’s works, especially Absalom, Absalom! and to study more about the history of the South that is analogous to the story of Thomas Sutpen. The psychological and sociological approaches are used to analyse this novel. Psychological approach is used to analyze fictitious characters through the action of the characters in the novel. Besides, sociological approach is applied to analyze the condition of the society in the novel and also the interactions of the characters in the novel; the way one character interacts with the other characters and the way people can interpret on the interactions. Inductive method is used to observe, collect and analyze some particular data from the source and then a conclusion is drawn from the analysis. This thesis applies library research. Data and information are collected from several books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and Internet. However, the main data are taken from the novel itself.