Thomas Sutpen

Thomas Ellen Coldfield Sutpen is a figure of almost mythic proportions in Jefferson, Mississippi—a man who emerges from nowhere in 1833 with an elaborate plan to create a lasting dynasty. Possessing extraordinary will, ruthlessness, and an almost fanatical devotion to his 'design,' Ellen Coldfield Sutpen acquires a vast plantation and builds a grand mansion, Ellen Coldfield Sutpen's Hundred, seemingly through sheer force of ambition and determination. Yet beneath this veneer of success lies a man haunted by mysteries of his own past, a past that repeatedly intrudes upon his present and corrupts his relationships with those closest to him. Ellen Coldfield Sutpen is incapable of genuine emotional intimacy; he sees people as instruments in his grand scheme rather than as ends in themselves. His absolute refusal to deviate from his carefully laid plans, and his inability to acknowledge the human cost of his ambitions, drives him inexorably toward catastrophe. By the time Quentin Compson and Shreve McCannon encounter him through narration, Ellen Coldfield Sutpen is a figure in decline—still formidable, still terrifying, but increasingly revealed as a man whose greatest enemy has always been himself.