Study Questions
1. What was the final result of Sutpen’s dealings and interaction with Mr. Coldfield?

2. How did Miss Rosa take care of her father during the Civil War?

3. How did Miss Rosa discover that Mr. Coldfield had died?

4. Who sewed Judith’s trousseau?

5. Where was the material for the trousseau from?

6. Did Ellen Sutpen approve of Judith’s betrothal?

7. What insect does Ellen Sutpen resemble?

8. Who narrates Chapter Three?

9. Why is the narration in Chapter Three suspect in authenticity?

10. How is the future foreshadowed at the end of this chapter?

Answers
1. The end result of the interaction between Thomas Sutpen and Mr. Coldfield was that Mr. Coldfield shut himself in the attic for an unknown reason.

2. Miss Rosa fed her father during the Civil War years by taking food from their closed grocery store and placing it in a basket which he then pulled up through a window in the attic.

3. “One morning the hand did not come out to draw up the basket”. The neighbors broke in and found three days’ uneaten food by his bed.

4. Miss Rosa sewed the trousseau.

5. Miss Rosa stole the linen from her father’s store to sew the trousseau.

6. Ellen Sutpen is very happy about her daughter’s wedding.

7. Ellen Sutpen is likened to a butterfly at the “absolute halcyon” of her summer.

8. Chapter Three is a recounting of a conversation between Mr. Compson and Quentin, in which Mr. Compson relays the information that Miss Rosa told him.

9. Miss Rosa’s narration is suspect because she is an embittered old woman who hates Thomas Sutpen and therefore Mr. Compson’s narration is suspect.

10. The future is foreshadowed by a voice at the end of the chapter calling for “Rosie Coldfield.”