{"id":41,"date":"2014-01-01T13:07:23","date_gmt":"2014-01-01T18:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/?p=41"},"modified":"2015-12-14T07:12:11","modified_gmt":"2015-12-14T12:12:11","slug":"charlesbon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/charlesbon\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Bon"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Absalom,<\/a>

Absalom, Absalom! cover<\/p><\/div>\n

Character:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0Charles Bon<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Source Text:<\/strong> <\/span>\u00a0Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom!<\/i> 1936. New York: Random House, 1951.<\/p>\n

Entry Author:<\/span> \u00a0<\/strong>Claire McDonald<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Charles Bon is the son of protagonist Thomas Sutpen and Sutpen\u2019s first wife, Eulalia Bon Sutpen. During Sutpen\u2019s time spent as a plantation overseer in Haiti, he was offered Eulalia\u2019s hand in marriage after ending a slave rebellion on the plantation. Sutpen assumes that she is of Spanish descent, but she is actually part black, meaning that their son is also part black. Sutpen cannot bear the knowledge that his wife and son are partially black, and so he abandons them and attempts to begin a new life. Eventually, Eulalia and Bon leave Haiti and move to New Orleans.As a student at the University of Mississippi, Bon is admired and practically idolized by many of his classmates, including Sutpen\u2019s recognized son, Henry Sutpen. Henry and Bon become friends at school, and Henry brings Bon to Sutpen\u2019s Hundred for Christmas; at the time, Henry is unaware that Bon is his half-brother. Bon\u2019s reunion with Sutpen poses a significant threat to Sutpen, as Bon is evidence of Sutpen\u2019s past actions. However, he refuses to acknowledge him as his son until Bon and Judith, Sutpen\u2019s daughter, express their desire to marry each other. Sutpen is furious about this, but his anger is more directed at Bon\u2019s perceived blackness than at the fact that Judith and Bon are half-siblings.Just as Sutpen disowned Bon because of his blackness, Henry eventually does the same. Henry and Bon are close friends while they are attending University of Mississippi together, and Henry initially repudiates his father when he learns that Bon is his half-brother and that Sutpen had abandoned him and his mother. He continues to support Bon\u2019s wish to marry Judith until Sutpen reveals that Bon is partially black. Henry, much like his father, is also disgusted and infuriated by the thought of Bon tainting their family\u2019s pure bloodline. Bon\u2019s death comes at the hands of Henry, who shoots him at the gate of Sutpen\u2019s Hundred.<\/p>\n

Bon\u2019s race is important to\u00a0Absalom, Absalom!<\/i>\u00a0because of his father and brother\u2019s response to it. Despite the fact that both Bon and Henry are Sutpen\u2019s biological sons, Sutpen rejects Bon because he cannot accept the fact that Bon is partially black. Bon\u2019s status as black also means that Sutpen\u2019s dream of becoming a Southern aristocrat cannot be achieved; Bon cannot inherit his father\u2019s plantation because of it, meaning that Sutpen\u2019s goal of creating a legacy cannot be achieved. Bon also signifies the desecration of the Sutpen bloodline\u2019s purity, which Sutpen also cannot abide by. Faulkner is able to use Bon as a way to comment on Southern perceptions of race. Because Bon is considered to be black, he brings shame upon his own father because he is seen as subordinate; the bond between father and son is severed because Sutpen refuses to accept a son who is, by the one-drop rule, black.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Character:\u00a0\u00a0Charles Bon Source Text: \u00a0Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom! 1936. New York: Random House, 1951. Entry Author: \u00a0Claire McDonald Charles Bon is the son of protagonist Thomas Sutpen and Sutpen\u2019s first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":42,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20581],"tags":[20577,20584,20582,20592,20583,20585],"class_list":{"0":"post-41","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-absalom","8":"tag-black","9":"tag-fatherson","10":"tag-haiti","11":"tag-male","12":"tag-part-black","13":"tag-south","14":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}