How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"In church, mind you, as though there were a fatality and curse on our family and God himself were seeing to it that it was performed and discharged to the last drop and dreg. Yes, fatality and curse on the South and on our family as though because some ancestor of ours had elected to establish his descent in a land primed for fatality and already cursed with it, even if it had not rather been our family, our father's progenitors, who had incurred the curse long years before […]." (1.15)
Families can be a good thing. A great thing, even. But Miss Rosa believes there is a curse on Sutpen: so by marrying him, Miss Rosa's sister brings the curse upon her family, too. Um, Sutpen? Stay away from Shmoop, please.
Quote #5
[…] though he [Mr. Coldfield] did permit his daughter to marry this man of whose actions his conscience did not approve. (2.17)
In spite of being a very righteous and ethical man, Mr. Coldfield allows his daughter Ellen to marry an ambitious and unorthodox stranger. He doesn't like Sutpen but still goes out of his way many times to help him. What gives?
Quote #6
Because until he came back from Virginia in '66 and found her [Miss Rosa] living there with Judith and Clytie – (Yes, Clytie was his daughter too: Clytemnestra. He named her himself. He named them all himself: all his own get […]. (2.3)
Part of Sutpen's design on the road to world-domination is to create a family. And just like Adam in the Garden of Eden, Sutpen takes the authority to name everything around him. Why do you think he didn't name his son Thomas, after himself?