[16] Christmas has light skin but is viewed as a foreigner by the people he meets, and the children in the orphanage in which he was raised called him "nigger." study of the dangers of religious fanaticism. What rhetorical In addition, Faulkner makes us privy to the internal monologues and that Faulkner knew so well. In part, the novel can be seen as a that guide Mr. McEachern blind him, stunt his compassion, and encourage cloister themselves in the shadow world of their domiciles, tempted Hightower’s betrayal and insensitive treatment Light in August is a 1932 novel by the Southern (American) author William Faulkner. Lena Grove – a young pregnant woman from Alabama who has traveled to Jefferson while looking for Lucas Burch, the father of her unborn child. The teaching in the temple in John 7 is echoed by McEachern's attempts to teach Christmas his catechism. She dies in childbirth after Eupheus Hines refuses to call a doctor for her. [1], All of the protagonists in the novel are misfits and social outcasts surrounded by an impersonal and largely antagonistic rural community, which is represented metonymically through minor or anonymous characters. Light in August - Setting Most of Light in August is set in the towns, villages, and countryside of the early 1930s Deep South. There is some satisfaction in Lucas Burch's desperate attempts (and ultimate failure) to get the reward money as redemption for his treatment of Lena; however, in Christmas's world, justice is impossible. By focusing on characters who are misfits, outcasts, or otherwise marginalized in their community, he portrays the clash of alienated individuals against a Puritanical, prejudiced rural society. SparkNotes is brought to you by Barnes & Noble. [15] However, the Christian references are dark and disturbing—Lena is obviously not a virgin, Christmas is an enraged murderer—and may be more appropriately viewed as pagan idols mistakenly worshipped as saints. before a complex and fluid backdrop of social conventions and public [19] Because of this, an early critic concluded that blackness and women were the "'twin Furies of the Faulknerian deep Southern Waste Land'" and reflected Faulkner's animosity toward life. There she expects to find Lucas working at another planing mill, ready to marry her. She has been told that a man named Bunch works at the mill and assumes it is Lucas Burch, because the name sounds similar. commentary, and a cacophony of voices combines to embody and characterize Like other Faulkner novels, Light in August is kind of hard on religion. devices does Faulkner employ—dialogue/monologue, slang/dialect, [24] In the same year, it was translated into German along with several other of Faulkner's novels and short stories. in the South assumed unique qualities—an observation (and title) In Mottstown, he is arrested and jailed, then moved to Jefferson. These works initially met with approval from the Nazi censors and received much attention from German literary critics, because they assumed that Faulkner was a conservative agrarian positively depicting the struggle for racial purity; soon after, however, Faulkner's works were banned by the Nazis, and post-war German criticism reappraised him as an optimistic Christian humanist. . when Reverend Hightower revisits his life and his arrival in Jefferson Although Faulkner presents plenty of examples of vibrant and positive Additionally, Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. communities of faith in the novel, these communities are frequently In a series of flashbacks, the story reveals how these two people are connected to another man who has deeply impacted both their lives. by the world of light, of reality and self-exposure, that exists How is religion But, in contrast to these depictions, Byron Bunch doesn't advertise or preach, maintaining a quiet spirituality that sustains him throughout the novel. He has a sexual relationship with Joanna Burden, an older woman who descended from a formerly powerful abolitionist family whom the town despises as carpetbaggers. Christmas comes to Jefferson three years prior to the central events of the novel and gets a job at the mill where Byron, and later Joe Brown, works. and influence are key concerns in Light in August. It might have fauns and satyrs and the gods and—from Greece, from Olympus in it somewhere. Joanna is murdered soon after: her throat is slit and she is nearly decapitated. personal philosophy to compensate for the perceived failings of [6] The narrative is not structured in any particular order, as it is often interrupted by lengthy flashbacks and constantly shifts from one character to another. [4], According to Daniel Joseph Singal, Faulkner's literary style gradually developed from 19th century Victorian to modernist, with Light in August more firmly grounded in the tradition of the latter. © 2020 Shmoop University Inc | All Rights Reserved | Privacy | Legal. Though Christmas is guilty of violent crimes, Faulkner emphasizes that he is under the sway of social and psychological forces that are beyond his control and force him to reenact the part of the mythical black murderer and rapist from Southern history. Joe is The sheriff at first suspects Joe Brown, but initiates a manhunt for Christmas after Brown claims that Christmas is black. He has been fired from his job at Doane's Mill and moved to Mississippi, promising to send word to her when he has a new job. - Light in August - Setting Most of Light in August is set in the towns, villages, and countryside of the early 1930s Deep South. This was Lena and Byron, who were conducting a half-hearted search for Brown, and they are eventually dropped off in Tennessee. At the end of her relationship with Christmas, Joanna tries to force him, at gunpoint, to kneel and pray. This page was last edited on 19 September 2020, at 13:29. Eupheus "Doc" Hines – the grandfather of Joe Christmas. Byron Bunch, though more accepted in Jefferson, is still viewed as a mystery or simply overlooked. The supposed gatekeeper of religion in the novel – Reverend Hightower – was defrocked due to his selfish, bombastic preaching style and his adulterous wife. Faulkner’s main characters stage their lives For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. they head into their equally vague future. In Mr. Hines uses religion as an excuse to preach white supremacy. referring to the renewed sense of hope that Lena’s baby signifies. How does Reverend Hightower’s presence enrich and Hines families? It begins with the journey of Lena Grove, a young pregnant white woman from Doane's Mill, Alabama, who is trying to find Lucas Burch, the father of her unborn child. Faulkner shows the restrictiveness and aggression of their Puritanical zeal, which has caused them to become "deformed" in their struggle against nature. "[24] He argues that many of the early American critics, most of whom were urban Northerners who viewed the South as backward and reactionary, focused on Faulkner's technical innovation in the field of narrative but missed or ignored the regional details and interconnectedness of the characters and setting to other works by the author. Because of this, Joe Christmas is fixated on the idea that he has some African American blood, which Faulkner never confirms, and views his parentage as an original sin that has tainted his body and actions since birth. Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select. is the thematic significance of appropriating these devices in the In spite of these complaints, the novel came to be viewed positively because of its violence and dark themes, as this was a contrast to the sentimental, romantic Southern literature of the time. Set in the author's present day, the interwar period, the novel centers on two strangers, a pregnant white woman and a man who passes as white but who believes himself to be of mixed ethnicity. significance of the novel’s title? of a specific moral or religious doctrine. The title refers to the fire of the house that is at the center of the story. [27] Critics were also displeased with the violence depicted in the novel, pejoratively labeling it "gothic fantasy," despite the fact that lynching was a reality in the South. As Virginia V. James Hlavsa points out, each chapter in Faulkner corresponds to themes in John. When she arrives in Jefferson, Lucas is there, but he has changed his name to Joe Brown. The novel is set in the American South in the 1930s, during the time of Prohibition and Jim Crow laws that legalized racial segregation in the South. He disapproves of Christmas's growing disobedience and is presumably killed by his adopted son when the boy is 18. Mr. Hines uses religion as an excuse to preach white supremacy. It is difficult, nearly impossible, to construe Light in August without noting the Christian parallels. Although he has light skin, Christmas suspects that he is of African American ancestry. Faulkner believed that late-summer light [29], 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century, William Clark Falkner (great-grandfather), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Light_in_August&oldid=979213228, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. [9] Speaking of his choice of title, Faulkner denied this interpretation and stated, . Brown deserts Lena once again, but Byron follows him and challenges him to a fight. the life of this community. Thematically, the complex layering of both internal and external the setting is meant to bear faithful witness to the Mississippi At the end of the story, an anonymous man is talking to his wife about two strangers he picked up on a trip to Tennessee, recounting that the woman had a child and the man was not the father. the plot lines that present and develop them, defy easy or tidy resolutions. It is a land of racial prejudice and stern religion. He has been living in Jefferson with Joe Christmas in a cabin on Joanna Burden's property under the name Joe Brown and working with Christmas and Byron at the planing mill. Light in August, novel by William Faulkner, published in 1932, the seventh in the series set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha county, Miss., U.S. his prior life of faith. [26] Some reviewers saw Faulkner's narrative techniques not as innovations but as errors, offering Faulkner recommendations on how to improve his style and admonishing him for his European modernist "'tricks'". He is a friend and mentor to Byron. an idiomatic, regional meaning of “light” as another term for pregnancy, For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. . would seem almost audible, like a dying yellow fall of trumpets [20], However, while women and minorities are both viewed as "subversive" and are restricted by the patriarchal society depicted in the novel, Lena Grove is able to travel safely and be cared for by people who hate and mistrust her, because she plays on the conventional rule that men are responsible for a woman's wellbeing. .in August in Mississippi there’s a few days somewhere about the middle of the month when suddenly there’s a foretaste of fall, it’s cool, there’s a lambence, a soft, a luminous quality to the light, as though it came not from just today but from back in the old classic times. such as Lena’s having traveled “a fur piece,” lend his characters’ However suspicion must fall on Doc Hines Joe's deranged grandfather who placed him in the orphanage and stays on as the boilerman. and inevitable damnation. The dialect and regionalisms employed, Looking for Lucas, sweet, trusting Lena meets shy, mild-mannered Byron Bunch, who falls in love with Lena but feels honor-bound to help her find Joe Brown. Milly Hines – the teenage mother of Joe Christmas.
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