At the end, Shreve seems to be implying that the South is not really Quentin’s problem, and Quentin, in his vehement response that he does not hate the South, affirms as much—or does he?—since he protests too much and cannot, in the end, remove himself from Mississippi mores, no matter how coldly Shreve tries, in the end, to put the Sutpen saga in the perspective of world history.

With Absalom, Absalom!, Faulkner was putting himself on a global stage, inviting the kind of international attention that would attend his winning of the Nobel Prize thirteen years later. As much as Faulkner disliked the role of public figure, this novel, more than any other, shows the making of the author as envoy, engaging the world outside of Yoknapatawpha even as he probed more deeply into his native land’s races and history.151