This study of Faulkner's work shows the unique influence of the Bible on the style, structure, and technique of Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, an area largely neglected by Faulkner critics and scholars.
The first clue to the reader that the Bible is a shaping influence in this novel is the ironic title, derived from the famous lament of King David, who wept and cried when his much loved, but rebellious son, Absalom was killed. Thomas Sutpen, the protagonist of the novel, makes no such lament.
The architectonic structure of the Bible provides the clue to the major patterns in Absalom, Absalom!.
The major two-part division of the Bible--the Old Testament and the New Testament--is reflected in the creeds of Sutpen and Bon, who represent respectively the Old Law and the New Law.
Even the various phrases of the Old Testament are carefully delineated in Absalom, Absalom!
Imagery derived from the Bible also functions to lend multiple meanings to Absalom, Absalom!. Not only in structure and symbol, but in rhetoric and cadence, as well, the Bible gives Absalom, Absalom! a distinctive flavor.
In the creation of Thomas Sutpen, a heroic man of cosmic dimensions, Faulkner uses an overarching of structure that coincides with that of the Bible. Thus, Absalom, Absalom! becomes Faulkner's own Bible, reshaped and re-created from Genesis to Revelation.
