Both Quentin and Henry, however, young men brought up in the patriarchal South, divert their attention away from their homosexual desires onto a more open topic for their time and region: the taint of black blood. In Faulkner's novel, the obvious homoeroticism of Charles's and Henry's relationship is mirrored by the homoeroticism between Quentin and Shreve.

As Richard Dyer wryly puts it, 'the problem with queers is you can't tell who is and who isn't' (Culture 97). Furthermore, Absalom, Absalom! invokes a shadow theme about the complexities of desire. Like Passing, Absalom, Absalom! overtly explores the 'deceptive appearances' that resist society's attempts at racial classification. Corinne Blackmer points out that 'ince the term 'passing' carries the connotation of being accepted for something one is not, the title of the novel serves as a metaphor for a wide range of deceptive appearances and practices that encompass sexual as well as racial passing' (100). McDowell explores the connection between passing for white and passing for straight, arguing that the 'more dangerous story-though not named explicitly- of Irene's awakening sexual desire for Clare' (xxvi). I offer here a reading of Absalom, Absalom! similar to Deborah McDowell's famous reading of Nella Larsen's Passing.

In Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! two paired male relationships, that of Quentin and Shreve in the novel's present and that of Henry and Charles in the novel's past, couple the sexual taboos of homosexuality and miscegenation.

Absalom absalom by william faulkner