Absalom, Absalom! Contrasting Regions: The South Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

(Jefferson was a village then: The Holston house, the courthouse, six stores, a blacksmith, a livery stable, a saloon frequented by drovers and peddlers, the churches and perhaps thirty residences) the stranger's name went back and forth among the places. (2.1)

Though Sutpen's Hundred is outside Jefferson, its presence looms large in all of the townspeople's thoughts. This is what happens when you build your empire in a small city.

Quote #5

[…] a small new college in the Mississippi hinterland and even wilderness, three hundred miles from that worldly and even foreign city which was his home… (3.12)

Ole Miss was founded in 1844, and at the time, was in the middle of nowhere. Especially compared to New Orleans, the college town seems very uncosmopolitan and remote.

Quote #6

Henry […] the provincial, the clown almost, given to instinctive and violent action rather than to thinking, ratiocination, who may have been conscious that his fierce provincial's pride in his sister's virginity was a false quantity […]. (4.5)

Henry completely lacks the sophistication of Charles Bon, who grew up in the densely populated city of New Orleans. Because he is really just a country boy, Henry is seen as more impulsive and emotional than intelligent and rational. Hey, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.