Thomas Sutpen

The protagonist of William Faulkner's 1937 novel Absalom, Absalom. Sutpen arrives in Faulkner's imaginary Yoknapatawpha County in Mississippi in the 1830s and established a 100 square-mile plantation, Sutpen's Hundred, in an attempt to create his own personal dynasty. However, the sins of his past and indiscriminate sexual practices and alcoholism eventually caused the downfall of his empire by the early 20th century.