Light in August Essay

Spring Author Report: Joe Christmas William Faulkner 's novel, Light in August, is set in his fictional town of Yoknapatawpha County, depicting the rural South in the early 1900’s. It is a novel about humanity where Faulkner uses his characters to establish the necessity for human connection. Joe Christmas, the main character, experiences a tragic journey toward self-identity. Faulkner uses the character of Joe Christmas to expose how conflict with society and oneself unchains a darkness. Joe

Faulkner's Light in August          "Blood" is considered by many to be one of the most important ties between human beings; it is therefore frequently used as an image that defines a character or a relationship between characters in a novel. For example, a prince might be defined by his "royal blood," or a weak man described as having "thin blood." Close friends may be "blood brothers," or families may have a "blood feud." In William Faulkner's Light in August, the

furthering his dislike for all women. Since he was a child in the orphanage women have mistreated him and fueled his bias against all women. Christmas sees all women as conniving, greedy, irrational, and puzzling. In William Faulkner’s book, Light In August, Joe Christmas’s life and personality were shaped by every encounter he had with women. Joe Christmas’s distain for women began in the orphanage or even a little before. Joe most likely had abandonment issues because he never knew his mother

William Faulkner weaves a interconnected tale of three characters in his novel "Light in August", through a text filled with the mastery of his riveting story-telling and raw dialogue. Belonging to their roles as the three main characters, Lena Grove, Joe Christmas, and Gail Hightower are unorthodox in their individual ways and as such, are thrust out of their respective communities, cast out as "loners" by their very humanity. Faulkner employs these outcasts in his novel because they all share a

The McEachern’s, an older southern couple who raise Joe Christmas, are similar to Grant Wood’s American Gothic. Light in August by William Faulkner was written in the style of Sothern gothic and this painting is entitled American Gothic. The McEachern’s live on a farm similar to the family in the painting. Similar to the look the farmer man in the painting has, Mr. McEachern looks at a young, orphaned Joe Christmas whom he is about to adopt “with a stare cold and intent and yet not deliberately harsh

arise from inner-self conflict. Although the basic causes of the both Joe’s and Joanna’s isolation is similar, there are still noticeable differences in how they are viewed by the others and the way they solve their situations. Also throughout Light in August, many references are made to race that reveal the roots of one man’s disrespect for another man: “She [Joanna] has lived in the house since that she was birthed in, yet she is still an outsider whose people moved in from the North during Reconstruction…

of the boat that is his life. Christmas’ path takes turns and twists that create a taciturn man who has been brought into the world unwanted; then, he ruthlessly moves forward looking back at his past in order to make decisions for his future. Light In August parallels Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”, when Joe finds that he has reached a fork in the road and has to plan for kind of life he wants to lead, contradicting factors jumble his persona. This creates a dualism in Joe’s soul, wherein two

minorities, such as women, remained in an underclass with strict social and economic rules as the South expanded outside it agrarian roots. William Faulkner captures the preconceived sentiments keeping the Civil War relevant in the South in his novel Light in August. He chronicles the stories of the outcasts Lena Grove and Joe Christmas, both people who break social

She is akin to the ‘straight man’ in a sitcom—if there were nobody to react to the antics of the other actors, many jokes would fall flat. Similarly, the mental crises which many characters in Light in August undergo seem more significant after the reader has been exposed to Lena’s stability. Lena is also the immediate stimulus for several turning points for other characters: Byron Bunch falls in love with her and puts himself on a quest to gain her

“Dysfunctional families pervade Yoknapatawpa County” (Urgo 66). The ventures of the three key characters in Light in August lead to inevitable outcomes due to their families’ neglect. Each individual respectively has his own faults in life. However, it is a mixture of childhood negligence and happenstance which causes these characters to isolate themselves and commit negative acts. Undoubtedly, William Faulkner develops empathy through the trials of Hightower, Lena Grove, and Joe Christmas as they