Light in August Symbolism, Imagery & Allegory Ghosts, Phantoms, and Voices of the Past Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

The three characters in the novel who are the most pre-occupied with the past ar e also the ones who seem to experience ghostly presences: Hightower refers to hi mself as growing up "among phantoms, and side by side with a ghost" (20.10); Chr istmas describes a darkness "filled with the voices, myriad, out of all time tha t he had known, as though all the past was a flat pattern" (12.45); Miss Burden is haunted by black shadows. These ghosts, shadows, and phantoms seem to represent different aspects of the p ast that these characters are unable to give up. Hightower is so obsessed with t he nineteenth century that he cannot fully exist in the twentieth; Joe Christmas is haunted by the possibility of his black ancestry; Joanna Burden can't leave the house she grew up in and the legacy of her male ancestors. Each of these cha racters isolates themselves from living people, but it may actually be the dead that they seek to escape. As Byron Bunch puts it, "A man will talk about how he' d like to escape from living folks. But it's the dead folks that do him the dama ge. It's the dead ones that lay quiet in one place and don't try to hold him, th at he can't escape from" (3.23). The Street and The Road Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory The novel begins and ends on the road, and we see dozens of them in between. Int erestingly, the street takes on two distinct meanings in the novel. For Joe Chri stmas, the street functions as a series of endless dead ends; after he sees Bobb ie for the last time, he enters the street, "which was to run for fifteen years" (10.3). He's constantly walking in an attempt to find himself or to reach clari ty, but instead he just ends up confused or threatens violence, as when he wande rs into a black neighborhood with a razor in his hand. In contrast, for Lena Gro ve the road is redemptive and filled with infinite possibilities. The road deliv ers her to Jefferson and to Byron Bunch, and by the end of the novel it's leadin g her toward a new life with her make-shift family. The Sheep Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory Christmas's murder of the sheep in his neighbor's field has at least two meaning s (of course, in literature, there is always room for more!). First, the killing foreshadows the murder of Miss Burden, letting the reader know that Christmas i s capable of taking a life. The sheep is also another Christian symbol, and may foreshadow Christmas's own impending death. Christmas could be interpreted as a sacrificial lamb whose death makes the white community of Jefferson feel safer a nd vindicated. Light in August Setting Jefferson, Mississippi, located in Yoknapatawpha County, the 1920s Faulkner used the fictional Yoknapatawpha county as the setting for many of his novels and stories, including Absalom, Absalom,The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and " A Rose for Emily." The strategic location allows Faulkner to explor e the tortured legacy of slavery and the Civil War in the post-ReconstructionSou th. Mississippi in the 1920s faced an uphill battle: cotton had been its chief e conomic resource, but the abolition of slavery meant less cotton production to f uel the economy; Jim Crow laws meant that while African Americans were technical ly free, they still had to live "separate but equal" lives apart from white Amer icans, leading to a lot of racial tension. The novel also takes place during Pro hibition (1920-1933), a period when the sale and manufacture of alcohol was ille gal in America. Light in August Narrator: Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we tru st her or him? Third Person (Omniscient) Much of the narrative is told in the third person omniscient style. With this ap proach, the narrator is able to convey all of the feelings and unconscious thoug

hts and desires of the characters, really fleshing them out and making them simi lar to complicated human beings. The third person style allows the narrator to m ove through time and space, so we can see Joe Christmas when he was five years o ld, stealing toothpaste, but we can also get to know him when he's a young adult , drifting from town to town. In addition to third person technique, we also get a lot of the characters telli ng their stories and back-stories through first person dialogue. Lena Grove tell s her story to Armstid in Chapter 1, for example. Similarly, Mrs. Hines tells he r story to Hightower and Joanna Burden tells Joe Christmas the history of her fa mily, saving the narrator the trouble of doing so. This mixes things up a bit an d allows us to differentiate characters by the way they speak and their perspect ive on the world. It allows characters to speak in their own language, giving th e stories more originality and variety than they'd have if only one narrator del ivered them all to us. Light in August Genre Southern Modernist Fiction William Faulkner was an American modernist through-and-through. As such, many fe atures of modernism are present inLight in August. First off, the story is told from multiple perspectives and in several different writing styles Joe Christmas 's story is told through dense flashbacks rich in psychological detail, Mrs. Hin es tells Hightower her story in her own words, while Hightower's story is told i n a mixture of flashback and town gossip. This creates a story that doesn't priv ilege just one perspective. Instead, it spreads authority throughout the town's characters, suggesting that there are multiple ways of telling stories and of te lling the truth, as well.Light in August also features the use of stream-of-cons ciousness, particularly in Joe Christmas's sections. This allows us access to hi s confused and tortured psyche. Faulkner also gives the novel a distinctly southern vibe, though, by including s outhern dialect and local colloquialisms. Even the title of the novel, Light in August, is thought to reference a southern phrase meaning "pregnant." The very t itle of the work, then, highlights the fact that this is a novel deeply influenc ed by and embedded in southern life and culture. Light in August Tone Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful? Comical, Dark One of the coolest aspects of Light in August is the way the mood of the novel s hifts constantly between light comedy and dark drama. There's a big difference i n tone between the quicker-paced, comic mood of Byron's life at the mill or his odd love story with Lena, and the tragic tale of Joe Christmas's life. The light er portions of the novel tend to feature more dialogue and great one-liners: "I reckon that being good is about the easiest thing in the world for a lazy man ." (2.18) In contrast, many of Christmas's chapters focus more on descriptive detail and t houghts: Then it seemed to him, sitting on the cot in the dark room, that he was hearing a myriad sounds of no greater volume voices, murmurs, whispers: of trees, darkne ss, earth; people: his own voice; other voices evocative of names and times and places which he had been conscious of all his life without knowing it, which wer e his life, thinking [] God loves me too. (5.7) These differences in tone keep the novel from getting boring, which is always co ol. But they also turn the book into a tragicomic hybrid that puts southern Amer ican humor in contact with the horrific legacies of slavery and racism in Americ a.

Light in August Writing Style Complicated, Perspectival One of the major reasons why Faulkner can be so hard to read is his use of long run-on sentences like, say, this one: Knows remembers believes a corridor in a big long garbled cold echoing building of dark red brick sootbleakened by more chimneys than its own, set in a grassles s cinderstrewnpacked compound surrounded by smoking factory purlieus and enclose d by a ten foot steel-and-wire fence like a penitentiary or a zoo, where in rand om erratic surges, with sparrowlike childtrebling, orphans in identical and unif orm blue denim in and out of remembering but in knowing constant as the bleak wa lls, the bleak windows where in rain soot from the yearly adjacenting chimneys s treaked like black tears. (6.1) Yeah, we didn't think your teacher would like that one either. This paragraph-se ntence also features other Faulkner traits such as compound words ("cinderstrewn packed," "sootbleakened"), repetition ("bleak walls and bleak windows"), and mad e-up words known as neologisms ("adjacenting"). While at first the paragraph mig ht seem completely overwhelming, it helps to keep in mind what's being described Joe Christmas's memory. And how do people remember? In bits and pieces, and in flashes of information that may not make sense on their own, but when put togeth er they create an emotionally complex collage of the past. Another feature of Faulkner's writing is his use of perspective. Since this is a tale of a local community, the narrative jumps around from Lena's perspective t o Byron's, from Joe Christmas to Reverend Hightower. Whats Up With the Title? Well, a few things, actually. First up, at the beginning of Chapter 20, Reverend Hightower sits at his window before the sun begins to set, and marvels at "how that fading copper light would seem almost audible, like a dying yellow fall of trumpets dying into an interval of silence and waiting" (20.2). Some scholars su ggest that Faulkner thought that Mississippi sunlight had some rather distinct p roperties, so one way to think about the title as a way of honoring a peculiar g eographical feature Southern light. Hightower's final scene is also important in that he finally takes responsibilit y for being a bad minister and for driving his wife insane, leading him to exper ience a kind of en"lighten"ment while sitting at the window and observing the ch anging light outside. In this sense, to "live in the light" might mean to have t he ability to see yourself clearly, without such distortions as egotism or a pre -occupation with the past. Some scholars also note that the phrase "to be light in August" is a Southern sl ang term for pregnancy; this highlights Lena Grove's role as a character that un ites several aspects of the story and brings characters together during her preg nancy and with the birth of her child.We should also let you know that Light in August was originally titled Dark House, and three of the major characters Joann a Burden, Gail Hightower, and Joe Christmas are frequently depicted sitting in d arkness. We'd say that's a pretty appropriate image for characters that are trap ped in the past and in their own egos, unable to experience enlightenment and in sight. Whats Up With the Ending? We're going to go out on a limb here and suggest that there are not one but thre e endings to the novel. The first ending is when Christmas dies, the second is w hen Hightower dies, and the third is the final chapter where Lena, Bunch, and th e baby head to Tennessee in search of Joe Brown. Now, these three endings give us three different perspectives on the individual' s relationship to society. Christmas's death seems inevitable a final, physical manifestation of decades of social alienation, anger and loneliness. Christmas l

earns no real lessons about himself or his racial identity, nor does he ever for ge a meaningful connection with anyone. In Hightower's death, we see the value of reflection and of being really honest with yourself. He finally realizes that his wife's death was his fault, that he was kind of a bad minister because of how obsessed he was with the Civil War, an d that he was a selfish jerk a lot of the time. It takes a lot to admit these ki nds of things to yourself, but Hightower does it through pain-staking reflection and thought, which eventually leads to a kind of en-"lighten"-ment that nicely coincides with the novel's title. Ironically, this enlightenment comes way too l ate for either Hightower or the world to benefit from it, and he dies almost imm ediately after having come to these revelations. So where do we turn to for some hope and a little uplifting? Well, in the strang e threesome of Lena, Byron, and the baby we see a modern version of the American family, tied together by ethical choices and a sense of responsibility (rather than marriage). Instead of running away from responsibility either physically (a s Christmas so often did) or mentally (as Hightower did), Byron Bunch retains hi s position as the moral compass of the novel, choosing to stand by Lena even if that means helping her find the father of her child. The novel seems to suggest that honoring social ties however tempting it is to abandon them is perhaps the surest way to enlightenment and happiness. Light in August Plot Analysis Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situ ation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Gre at writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice. Initial Situation Joe Christmas is an orphan with an ambiguous racial ancestry, searching for his place in the world. As Christmas's story begins, we see how his strange racial origins will haunt hi m for his entire life, leaving him confused and without an anchor in the world. Conflict Christmas is adopted by the McEachern family. Mr. McEachern is so strict that Ch ristmas runs away, drifting from town to town. In these scenes, Christmas experiences interpersonal conflict with everyone he m eets. He loathes McEachern, is disgusted by Mrs. McEachern's kindness, and alien ates Bobbie with his violent behavior. Complication Christmas starts to break down, fantasizing about killing Joanna Burden and gett ing increasingly violent with her. The moodier and more reclusive Christmas becomes, the worse we know it's going t o be for his journey of self-discovery. Climax Joe Christmas murders Joanna Burden with a razor. This act is the height of Joe's story, as it forces him to go on the run once ag ain, and we realize that he'll really never find insight into himself now that h e's being described as a black man who has murdered a white woman in a racist so uthern town. He's pretty much screwed, unless Suspense Joe Christmas is on the run. After being captured the first time, he escapes aga in, and flees to Hightower's house, seeking refuge. At this point it is unclear whether or not Christmas will survive. It's also iro nic that while he murdered Joanna Burden for trying to get him to pray, he ends up looking for shelter in the house of a gatekeeper of religion. Conclusion Percy Grimm shoots and castrates Joe Christmas. Christmas is described as allowing his death to happen, as he lets the crazed Pe rcy Grimm kill him. Unable to reconcile the warring racial factions within him, Christmas decides it's better to die than to have to live as a strange, uncomfor table amalgamation. It almost seems as though there's not yet room in America fo

r a person of mixed race. Light in August as Booker's Seven Basic Plots Analysis: Tragedy Plot Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of sev en basic plot structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voy age and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these str uctures fits this story like Cinderellas slipper. Plot Type : Anticipation Stage Christmas runs away from the McEacherns, longing for freedom. Christmas leaves this repressive family because they will not nurture his search for identity. He longs for companionship, sex, and fun a normal teenage life th at he cannot get in this household. He also wants to come to some sense of harmo ny with himself and to resolve his racial identity issues. Dream Stage After running away from the McEacherns, Christmas drifts from town to town, tryi ng to find himself and his true racial identity. Christmas experiments with his racial identity during this time, alternating bet ween passing as white and black depending on which woman he's sleeping with and which town he's in at the time. He's almost trying on different identities, tryi ng to see which one fits. Frustration Stage Miss Burden tries pressuring Christmas into becoming more religious and into bei ng an ambassador to the black community. Miss Burden's attempts to "reform" Christmas by turning him into a devout black activist only alienate and confuse him further. While he's uncomfortable in whit e society, he seems totally unwilling to give up his position "passing" as a whi te man, and the idea of helping black people seems disgusting to him. This inabi lity to reconcile his simultaneous desire for and hatred of both whiteness and b lackness leads him to want to kill Joanna. Nightmare Stage Christmas murders Joanna Burden. If Christmas's goal in life was to find himself, and to discover a place where h e could live in peace, then the murder he commits actually gets him the exact op posite of what he wants. Rather than finding a place to settle, Christmas is now doomed to repeat what he has done his entire life run away. Destruction Percy Grimm shoots and castrates Christmas. Christmas's literal destruction is tragic because it's an act of racial hatred, ignorance, and fear. But it's also tragic since he has never actually realized a nything about his racial identity. He has spent his entire life shutting people out and refusing to bond with anyone. He dies socially isolated and clueless abo ut himself, one of the greatest tragedies possible. Three-Act Plot Analysis For a three-act plot analysis, put on your screenwriters hat. Moviemakers know th e formula well: at the end of Act One, the main character is drawn in completely to a conflict. During Act Two, she is farthest away from her goals. At the end of Act Three, the story is resolved. Act I Joe Christmas is adopted by the McEacherns, where he has Christianity literally beaten into him every day. One day he fights with McEachern, hitting him over th e chair and possibly killing him. He steals money from Mrs. McEachern and runs a way, roaming from town to town, a rootless drifter. Act II Joe Christmas arrives in Jefferson, Mississippi, shacks up with Joanna Burden, a nd starts selling whiskey illegally. When Miss Burden tries to reform him into a Christian black activist, Christmas becomes enraged, eventually killing her wit h a razor. Act III Christmas is murdered. Hightower has moments of deep insight in his study, reali zing his selfishness and life's mistakes. The novel doesn't specify whether or n

ot he dies. Lena Grove, Byron Bunch, and Lena's baby travel to Tennessee togethe r in search of Joe Brown. Light in August Trivia Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge Light in August is on Time magazine's 100 best English-Language novels from 1923 to the present (source). Faulkner's a lover, not a fighter. He spent most of his early years thinking tha t he was a poet. Unfortunately, he wasn't a very good one. We're glad that he tu rned to novels. If you want to check out his juvenilia (that's work written when he was just a wee lad), then pick up this book of love poems (source). Faulkner, Hollywood hero? For several years in the 1930s-40s, Faulkner actually wanted to ditch his career as a world-famous novelist and become a world-famous screenwriter. He actually moved away from Mississippi and got a place in Hollywo od where he wrote screenplays for Howard Hawks (Hawks was a pretty hot director at the time) (source). Faulkner had a serious writer's crush on James Joyce. Here's what he said about Ulysses: "You should approach Joyce'sUlysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith" (source). Ernest Hemingway's take on Faulkner: "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big em otions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use." All we can say is Ouch. (source). Light in August Questions Bring on the tough stuff - theres not just one right answer. 1. Joe Christmas is repeatedly likened to Christ what do you make of all of these comparisons? Is Joe Christmas a martyr figure? 2. What is Percy Grimm's role in the novel? What aspect of southern history might he represent? 3. How are womanhood and female sexuality depicted in the novel? 4. Much of Light in August is told through flashbacks. What effect does thi s have on the reading experience? 5. What role does religion play in the novel? Are there competing versions of Christianity in the book and, if so, how do they differ from one another? The Lena Grove Joe Christmas Correlation One of the main objections to this novel is that there seems to be no relationsh ip between the stories of Lena Grove and the Joe Christmas tragedy. It is always pointed out that Lena and Joe never meet each other. However, they function in the novel as opposites and thus should never meet. But there are many connecting links between them. The first link is the column of smoke coming from Joanna Burden's house. This sm oke signaled Lena s arrival in Jefferson and Joe's departure, thus making it phy sically impossible for them to meet, especially since when Joe returns a capture d prisoner, Lena is giving birth to her child. And the contrast between these tw o opposing entities carries throughout the novel. Malcolm Cowley's objection (In troduction to The Portable Faulkner) that the themes "have little relation to ea ch other," or Irwin Howe's reservations (William Faulkner, a Critical Study) con cerning the "troublesome problems of organization" and the "evident flaw" of "lo oseness" seem unwarranted. The images of the curve and circle are used in connec tion with both. With Lena these images imply an acceptance and unity with life, but with Joe they represent the society from which he is isolated and the cage i n which he lives. Joe has been in Jefferson for three years when Lena arrives at the end of this t hird year. However, she comes to terms with the town almost overnight, while Joe was never able to adjust himself. This is the result of basic differences in th eir character: Lena is talkative, Joe reticent; Lena is willing to share her foo d, Joe rejects all proffered food; Lena's isolation is self-imposed, Joe's isola tion is imposed upon him; Lena is in a search of life, Joe is in flight from lif e; Lena never complains of life, Joe is in constant conflict with life; Lena bri ngs life and affirmation to the community, Joe brings death and rejection to him self and the community; and finally, Lena finds her peace in life while Joe can

find peace only in death. Thus Joe and Lena can never encounter each other because they are almost diametr ically opposed. But still, they bring about the resolution by performing their a cts and involvement on the same ground. Again the circle of smoke first introduc es them to each other. Then we find that Lena's lover is Christmas' partner. The y are connected through Brown, who has lived with both, betrayed both, and cause d both to take to the road. Lena goes to Christmas' cabin, the scene of Joanna's brutal death, to give birth and renewal to life. It is here that Hightower goes directly from the birth of Lena's son to Joe's de ath. And, finally, Christmas' grandparents assist in giving birth to Lena's chil d, which Mrs. Hines confuses with Milly's child. This results ultimately in conf using Lena as to the paternity of her child so that she confuses Joe Brown with Joe Christmas. Thus through life and death, Lena and Joe are symbolically joined together. Life is reaffirmed for Humankind through the birth of Lena's child, the death of Joe Christmas, and the resurrection of Hightower. The child then becomes the symbol of the future world which brings all people together, giving new life and hope to all. The Individual and the Community in Light in August* Light in August is probably Faulkner's most complex and difficult novel. Here he combined numerous themes on a large canvas where many aspects of life are vivid ly portrayed. The publication of this novel marked the end of Faulkner's greates t creative period in four years he had published five substantial novels and num erous short stories. Light in August is the culmination of this creative period and is the novel in which Faulkner combines many of his previous themes with new er insights into human nature. In Sartoris, The Sound and the Fury, and As I Lay Dying, Faulkner had examined the relationship of the individual to his family. In his next major novel, Absalom, Absalom!, Faulkner returned to the family as t he point of departure for his story. In Light in August, the family as a unit is replaced by the community, which although not examined as the family is in othe r novels, serves as the point of departure. The novel may be interpreted on many levels. It suggests such themes as man's is olation in the modern world, man's responsibility to the community, the sacrific e of Christ, the search-for-a-father, man's inhumanity to man, and the theme of denial and flight as opposed to passive acceptance and resignation. Each of these can be adequately supported, but none seems to present the whole i ntent of the novel. Perhaps this is because the complexity of the novel yields t o no single interpretation but seems to require a multiple approach. The complex theme of man's need to live within himself while he recognizes his r esponsibility both to himself and to his fellow man will support such a multiple approach to Light in August. The reaction of the various characters to the comm unity offers another basic approach to the novel. Phyllis Hirshleifer emphasizes the isolation of man in the novel, while Cleanth Brooks sees in it man's relati onship in the community. These two views do not exclude each other. The isolatio n of each character only reinforces his struggle for status both with the commun ity and with himself. Light in August follows in the logical pattern set by Faulkner's two earlier nov els, The Sound and the Furyand As I Lay Dying. The preceding novels dealt with m an trying to find a meaningful relationship with the immediate family, and this one deals with man in relationship to the community and as an isolated being una ble to communicate with his fellow man. Cleanth Brooks writes that the community serves as "the field for man's actions and the norm by which his action is judged and regulated." But the difficulty he re is that we do not have a sufficient picture of the norm. It would be accurate to regard the community as a force which man tries to assail or avoid. And as M iss Hirshleifer writes: "The society through which Lena moves, the people who gi ve her food, lodging, money and transportation because of her patient understand ing modesty are, after all, the same people who crucify the Christmases whose ev il arouses their own." It is, therefore, the responses of the community to the i ndividual that become significant. While Lena evokes responses for good, Joe Chr

istmas seems to arouse their evil instincts, and Hightower arouses their suspici on. But these responses are not seen, as Brooks suggests, from the view of the commu nity, but through the effects they produce on the individual character. Thus the community reacts in varying ways, but none of these reactions could accurately be considered as the norm of behavior. And even though Lena is able to evoke res ponses for good from various people, she remains outside the community. Each cha racter in the novel is seen as a lonely individual pitted against some force eit her within or outside himself. Lena, Byron Bunch, Hightower, Christmas, Joanna B urden, Joe Brown, Uncle Doc Hines, and even people like Percy Grimm and McEacher n stand outside the community. This is further emphasized by the fact that both Lena and Christmas are orphans who have no family whom they can return to. The c ommunity is also used as the objective commentator on the action. We get the lon g-range view usually from the point-of-view of the community, but nowhere during any of the long views does the community make any definite moral evaluations. The isolation theme is carried over into the structure of the novel. The novel m ay be broken down into many groups of seemingly isolated vignettes. Each scene, however, is part of one large thematic mosaic, and none could be successfully re moved without destroying the whole. Likewise, each isolated character in each is olated scene is viewed in the final analysis as a part of the structure of a uni fied whole. Thus the isolation of each character is supported by the structural device of presenting the action of the novel in groups of vignettes. Lena wills her own isolation. Although she could have left her brother's home un molested and by the front door, she chose to leave by the window which had playe d such a prominent part in her pregnancy. She never complains of her lot and nev er asks for help from anyone. However, she instinctively knows that people will help her; so she comes to accept their help at face value. Her simple faith in l ife is echoed by her belief that she ought to be with the father of her child wh en it is born: "I reckon the Lord will see to that." Her responses to life are t he simple and basic reactions founded on a simple philosophy of charity and hope . She is always anxious to help those people who give her assistance, and she wo uld always "be obliged" if others would share her meager meals with her. She con stantly feels the need to commune and share her experience with others. Even though she relies upon the kindness of strangers, her strength lies in the fact that she has assumed complete responsibility for her acts. She blames no pe rson for her predicament, and she acknowledges no outside hostile force working against her. Lena, then, brings with her the potential salvation and redemption of Byron Bunch and Hightower by evoking from them responses for good and forcing them to become involved in responsibility. Byron Bunch, during his seven years in Jefferson before Lena's arrival, had only one acquaintance, the Reverend Gail Hightower, who was an outcast completely is olated from the community. The community had never noticed Byron, except in a ca sual way to comment upon his idiosyncrasies, until he became involved with Lena. Merely by her passivity and her simple questions, Lena forces Byron to become i nvolved. After revealing to her the identity of Joe Brown, Byron then feels resp onsible to her. This feeling of responsibility draws Bryon out of his lethargic existence and forces him into the stream of life. He in turn tries to involve Hi ghtower, who struggles against Byron's interference. Hightower has lived too lon g in his isolated world of self-abnegation and denial to see that Byron must fee l responsible for Lena. He cannot understand Byron's actions and interprets them as possessing some ulterior motive. But Byron's actions are the outcome of more than thirty years of routine monoton y and celibacy. Byron, like Lena, had willed his own isolation in Jefferson; how ever, with the appearance of Lena, he is forced to become involved in society. H is potential redemption is that he is able to live outside himself and commune w ith another person; and even though this involvement was forced upon him, his st rength and salvation lie in the fact that he willingly accepts the responsibilit y for his actions. Not only does he commit the necessary acts of preparing for L ena's child and acting as her protector, but also, he exceeds the demands made u pon him when he follows after the fleeing Brown and confronts him even though he

knows that he will be beaten. Thus Byron, after willing his own isolation, has involvement forced upon him which he willingly accepts. Hightower's isolation is likewise somewhat self-imposed. Initially, the isolatio n derived from forces over which he had no control. His grandfather's ghost haun ted his Calvinistic conscience until it forced him to marry a girl whom he did n ot love and subject her to his own ghosts. He is haunted by two conflicting view s of his grandfather that of the romantic cavalry officer galloping down the str eets with drawn saber and that of the grandfather shot while stealing chickens, and furthermore, shot probably by some woman. The seminary he attended acted not as a sanctuary from his phantoms, as he hoped it would, but rather as a means of furthering his ends and preparing him for a call to Jefferson. At the seminary, he met his future wife, who wanted to escape from the tedium of her life there. At Jefferson, he confused God with his grand father, galloping horses with salvation, and the cavalry with Calvary. His sermo ns then reflected his own confusion and, as he later realizes, did not bring to the congregation the messages of hope and forgiveness. When his wife commits suicide as a result of Hightower failure as a husband, the congregation then turns against High-tower. He then becomes the rejected and is olated minister. Therefore, part of his isolation is forced upon him, but in par t it derives from his own inner failure to bring the past and present into a wor kable unity. Carl Benson writes: "Hightower shapes his own destiny by acts of will, and he is , therefore, morally accountable for his choice." It seems, however, that Highto wer's earlier life was shaped for him from forces of the past over which he had no control. These are the forces which ultimately cause him to be rejected by th e Presbyterian congregation. It is only after his dismissal that Hightower wills his own destiny, and therefore becomes morally liable for it. His choice to sta y in Jefferson despite persecution, disgrace, and physical violence results in h is complete isolation. His moral responsibility derives from the sanctity of iso lation away from the community. He thinks that because he suffered the disgrace and shame, the physical torment and pain, he has won the right to peace and soli tude and the privilege of remaining uninvolved in life. He refuses to accept res ponsibility for his past faults because his suffering has atoned for his previou s errors. But with the entrance of Lena into Jefferson, Hightower is forcefully drawn into the stream of life again and realizes that the past has not been bought and pai d for. Hightower, therefore, cannot become the effective moral reflector of the novel until he is able to come to terms both with himself and his fellow man, an d until he assumes a place in society again and recognizes his responsibility to himself and his fellow man. Lena, Byron, and Hightower all will their isolation. Joe Christmas' isolation is forced upon him early in his life by outside forces and attitudes. Part of his plight in life comes from the fact that he can never accept anything but partial responsibility for his acts and at the same time attempts to disclaim all respo nsibility for them. Just before killing Joanna, he thinks that "Something is goi ng to happen to me," which suggests that Christmas looks upon his violent action s as being compelled by exterior forces which relieve him of any personal respon sibility. But then this only increases his predicament, because he does feel a p artial responsibility for his actions. If, then, Christmas' life and attitudes a re shaped by exterior forces, it is necessary, in order to understand his plight , to determine how much Christmas feels he should be held responsible for his ac ts. Joe's earliest attitudes were formulated in the orphanage. It was here that he f irst discovered that he possessed Negro blood a fact that in one way or another controlled or affected his every act throughout life. His remaining life was spe nt trying to bring these two irreconcilable opposites into a significant relatio nship. His unknown father bequeathed him his Negro blood, and this heritage, ove r which he had no control, is the strongest influence upon his life. At the orph anage he is first called "nigger." The blood cages him in, and the vigilance of Euphues Hines sets him apart from the rest of the orphans. He is unable to estab

lish a meaningful relationship with any of the other children, and he senses his difference. One experience at the orphanage, especially, has multiple consequences for Chris tmas. When he is discovered stealing the dietitian's toothpaste, he expects puni shment and instead is bribed with more money than he knew existed. This experien ce becomes the determining factor in his attitude toward the order of existence, women, and sex throughout the rest of his life. Since he was kept in suspense f or several days desiring punishment which never came, he was left confused as to the meaning of his act. Therefore, during the rest of his life when the pattern or order of existence is broken, the result is usually disastrous. When he transgresses McEachern's rule s he expects and receives punishment, which accords with his idea of the order o f things. This is again why he detests the interference of Mrs. McEachern. She, like the dietitian, represents a threat to the settled order of human existence. Or else, with each prostitute during his years on the road, he would tell her t hat he was a Negro, which always brought one reaction. When this pattern is brok en by the prostitute who did not care whether he was Negro or not, his reactions are violent and he beats her unmercifully. Thus his violent outburst comes from the unconscious desire to punish the dietit ian who had first violated his pattern of order. The same reaction is seen in hi s relationship with Joanna Burden. For about two years, their relationship confo rmed to an ordered (though unorthodox) pattern; but when Joanna broke this patte rn with her demands that Christmas take over her finances, go to a Negro school, and finally that he pray with her in order to be saved, he again reacted violen tly to this violation of his concept of an ordered existence. His basic hatred for women ultimately returns to this episode. The dietitian in violating his order of existence also attempted to destroy his individuality. Th us the effeminizing efforts of Mrs. McEachern to soften his relations with his f oster father are rejected because if he yielded to them, he would face the possi bility of losing the firm and ordered relation with McEachern. As long as he mai ntains this masculine relationship with McEachern, he feels that he retains his individuality. And, finally, the childhood episode with the dietitian is reflected in his sex l ife. The toothpaste becomes the basic symbol. At the same time that it is a clea nsing agent, it also serves as a phallic symbol. The result of the scene is his utter sickness caused by the "pink woman smelling obscurity behind the curtain" and the "listening . . . with astonished fatalism for what was about to happen t o him." Each subsequent sex relation, therefore, brings a guilt feeling to Chris tmas. He associated sex with filth, sickness, violation of order, and the potent ial loss of individuality. Likewise, it is significant that each of his subsequent encounters with sex is a ccompanied by strong sensory images. When he beats the young Negro girl, it is a mid the strong odors of the barn and he is also reminded of the sickness caused by the toothpaste. Later, his first encounter with Bobbie Allen is in the restau rant where he goes to order food, and finally, he meets Joanna in her kitchen wh en he is stealing food from her. Each of these sensory occurrences recalls to hi m the scene with the dietitian and again threatens the loss of individuality and the breaking of an ordered existence. Christmas' need for order is violated in turn by each of the women with whom he comes into contact. The lesson he learned early in life was that he could depend upon men, but women were forever unpredictable. It was the woman who always bro ke the pattern of order. First the dietitian, then Mrs. McEachern violated his c oncept of order, and then Bobbie Allen turned violently against him at the time when he most needed her. The last woman to break his order of existence was Joan na Burden, who paid for it with her life. The women, then, serve as the destroyers of order. This is brought out mechanica lly by Faulkner by using the biblical concept of woman as being unclean. Their m enstrual period breaks the order of their life and then comes to represent their unordered and unclean life. The first time he learned of their monthly occurren ces, Christmas' reactions were violent and ended in a blood baptism the blood be

ing taken from a young sheep that he killed. But even then he rejected this know ledge so that when Bobbie Allen tried to explain the same thing to him, again hi s reactions were violent, this time ending with his vomiting. When he next sees Bobbie, he takes her with force and animal brutality. Again, he seems to be reac ting against his initial introduction to sex through the dietitian, again assert ing his masculinity by forcing order upon the woman. Christmas' great need for order reverts basically to the two bloods in him which are in constant conflict. As stated previously, his blood is his own battlegrou nd. He can neither accept nor reject his mixture of blood, and neither can he br ing these two elements into a workable solution. Christmas' plight results from his inability to secure a suitable position in society and he searches for a soc iety that will accept both elements of his blood. Unable to find this, he isolat es himself from all human society. Christmas' youthful love for Bobbie Allen existed on an idealistic plane because he was able to confess his Negro blood to her and be accepted by her as an indi vidual. However, her betrayal of his love accompanied by her taunts of "nigger b astard" and "clod-hopper" implants the idea in his mind that due to his blood he must remain the isolated being. His search for peace, then, is a search for someone who could accept Joe Christm as as an individual despite his conflicting blood. When Joanna Burden asks Chris tmas how he knows he has Negro blood, he tells her that if he has no Negro blood , then he has "wasted a lot of time." He has spent his whole life and energy try ing to reconcile these two bloods, and if he has no Negro blood then all the eff orts of his life have been to no avail." Joanna Burden should have been the person who could have accepted Joe for what h e was. By the time of their involvement, Christmas no longer seems to revolt aga inst being called a Negro. But Joanna fails him. In being corrupted by him, she seems to enjoy the corruption even more by screaming "Negro! Negro!" as he makes love to her. At thirty-three, Joe has learned to accept this name-calling witho ut the accompanying violent reactions; he is living in partial peace with himsel f, even though this peace has been found only in complete isolation. He must reject all of mankind in order to find peace. This is seen when Byron of fers Christmas food and the offer is rejected. Therefore, when Joanna offers him jobs, wants him to go to school, or tries to get him to pray, he feels that she is trying to destroy his isolation and peace. He is then forced to kill her or allow his own individuality, order, and peace to be destroyed by her. Faulkner c onveys this on the story level simply by the fact that Joanna planned to kill Ch ristmas and would have succeeded if the pistol had not failed her. Christmas is then forced to kill her in self-protection. His life, his individuality, his peace, and his order would have been destroyed by Joanna had he yielded to her. And her death is accompanied by Christmas' refr ain: "all I wanted was peace." But even at Joanna Burden's house, Joe could not attain his desired peace with himself because the warring elements of his blood compelled him to tell others that he was a Negro. At least, he confessed to Joan na and Brown. If, then, he could achieve peace only by isolating himself from pe ople and by rejecting all responsibility toward society, he could never attain i nner peace until he could accept himself and his own blood, both Negro and white . Since Joanna was an overpowering threat to Joe's sense of peace and order, he re alized that he must murder her or be destroyed by her. But the murder was not on e in cold blood. The elaborate and symbolic rituals preceding the actual perform ance suggest that Joe is involved in a deep struggle with himself. The murder, i nstead of resolving his minor conflicts, severs him forever from any hope of bec oming a meaningful part of society. It is significant that he does not attempt to escape. He never leaves the vicini ty of the crime. On the Tuesday after the Friday of the crime, he enters the Neg ro church and curses God. This is the height of his conflict. The white blood ca n no longer remain pacified and must express itself in violence. It remains now for Joe to come to terms with the conflicting elements within himself, and this can be done only within the circle of his own self; consequently, there is no ne

ed for Joe to leave the immediate neighborhood of his crime. When Joe exchanges his shoes for the Negro's brogans, he seems to accept his her itage for the first time in his life. And with his acceptance of his black blood , Joe Christmas finds peace for the first time in his life. Like Lena Grove, who always accepted her responsibility, Joe realizes now that in order to find peac e, he must accept full responsibility for his heritage and actions. And again li ke Lena, when he accepts this responsibility, he finds peace and contentment, an d he becomes unified with nature. Following this recognition and acceptance, he undergoes once more a symbolic cle ansing ritual. This time using the Negro's shoes to sharpen his razor, Christmas prepares himself for his return to town in order to assume responsibility for h is actions. It is when Joe accepts his Negro heritage and recognizes that he can never escap e from himself that he breathes quietly for the first time in his life and is su ddenly hungry no longer. This recognition that he is no longer hungry becomes si gnificant against the background of Joe's earlier life, which was filled with a constant struggle against hunger. That is, when he accepts himself, he symbolica lly becomes at peace with his tormenting hunger and also he sleeps peacefully fo r the first time. With his acceptance of his responsibility and his recognition of his heritage, J oe can once more approach others. This is revealed by the scenes which immediate ly precede and follow Joe's self-realization. In the first scene, Joe approaches a Negro in order to ask him the day of the week, and his mere appearance create s astonishment and terror in the Negro's mind. He flees from Christmas in utter horror. But immediately after Joe has come to peace with himself, he approaches another Negro who quite naturally and nonchalantly offers him a ride to Mottstow n. Joe now has achieved an acceptance for himself, and he thinks that he will sleep , but then realizes that he needs no sleep and no food because he has found peac e within himself. Thus Joe has traveled farther in the last seven days than in a ll the years of his life, because for the first time he has come to a complete r ecognition of his own life and sees that the true value or meaning of life is wi thin his circle where he is able to achieve an understanding with himself. Joe's plight in life, however, is not resolved. He could gain a partial truce wi th society by isolating himself from society; or else, he could attain a full ac ceptance of himself, but note that this was achieved while outside the community in complete isolation. Once he has recognized his responsibility, he must then return to the community. And once again in the community, he comes to the realiz ation that he can never be accepted by society. The realization of his complete rejection is made more terrible by the wild rantings of his own grandfather, who demands his death." Thus, if old Doc Hines must persecute his own grandson, Joe realizes that there can be peace for him only in death. His escape finally, how ever, seems to be not so much because of the fanaticism of old Doc Hines, but ra ther because of the quiet persuasion of Mrs. Hines. Her appearance at the jail w as probably Joe's final proof of the woman's need to destroy his individuality. Doc and Mrs. Hines then contribute to Joe's death, since they set peaceful eleme nts into contention again. Consequently, his escape is an escape from woman and also a search for peace and order through death. It is, therefore, logical that after his escape he runs first to a Negro cabin and then to Hightower's house. T hrough Mrs. Hines, Hightower has become the symbol of hope and peace to Christma s, and in his search for peace through death, he chooses Hightower's house as hi s sanctuary in which he passively accepts his crucifixion. His failure to fire t he pistol is symbolic of his acceptance of his crucifixion and death and of his recognition that he can find peace only in death. The violent death and castration of Christmas at the hands of Percy Grimm implan t in our memories the atrocities that man is capable of committing against his f ellow man. Grimm becomes the extreme potential of all the community when society refuses to accept its responsibility to mankind. Or as Hightower uttered when h e first heard about Christmas: "Poor man. Poor mankind." That is, Joe's death is not as much a tragedy for Joe as it is a tragedy for the society which would al

low such a crime as Grimm's to be perpetrated. In Grimm's act, therefore, we see the failure of man to attain recognition, sympathy, or communion among other men and society's fail ure to accept man in the abstract. But Joe's death was not in vain. Through his death and through the birth of Lena 's child, Hightower has attained salvation in life by arriving at a complete rea lization of his own responsibility. Earlier in life, Hightower thought that thro ugh suffering he had won for himself the privilege of remaining uninvolved in li fe. But with the appearance of Lena, he becomes once more drawn into the active stream of life. This participation was not voluntary but forced upon him in the first instance (delivering Lena's child), but after rejecting Mrs. Hines's pleas , his second act (attempting to save Joe's life) is entirely voluntary. Originally the attraction of Hightower and Byron to each other depended upon bot h being isolated from the community; but as Byron becomes involved, he draws Hig htower in also. Until after Lena gives birth, Hightower struggles to retain his isolation and advises Byron to do the same. But Byron's involvement is too deep. Hightower's struggle for isolation becomes more intense as he sees himself thre atened with involvement, especially when he is asked by Byron and Mrs. Hines to lie for Joe Christmas' (and in Hightower's words, mankind's) benefit. His refusa l is his last futile but passionate effort to retain his isolation. But Hightower goes to the cabin and successfully delivers Lena's child. This act of giving life to Lena's child becomes symbolic of Hightower's restoration to l ife. Immediately after the act, he walks back to town thinking that he won't be able to sleep, but he does sleep as peacefully as Lena's newborn child. He notic es for the first time the peaceful serenity of the August morning, he becomes im mersed in the miracle of life, and he realizes that "life comes to the old man y et." He views the birth as a sign of good fortune and an omen of goodwill. There fore, this act of involvement and responsibility has restored Hightower to the h uman race. This was Monday morning. Monday afternoon, Hightower is faced with his second ac t of involvement when Christmas flees to his house for sanctuary. This violence which Hightower must face is his payment for recognizing his responsibility in l ife. But having assisted in the birth of Lena's child and having recognized his involvement in life, he can no longer retract. Therefore, having acknowledged a partial responsibility, he must now perform his act of complete involvement in l ife by attempting to assume responsibility for Joe Christmas. And even though Hightower fails Christmas, he has achieved salvation for himself . He does not realize this until later on in the evening when the whole meaning of his life evolves in front of him "with the slow implacability of a mediaeval torture instrument." And through this wheel image, he sees that man cannot isola te himself from the faces surrounding the wheel. Man must become a part of the c ommunity and must assume responsibility not only for his own actions but also fo r the actions of his fellow man. The Circular Structure of Light in August The structure of the novel is best seen in terms of a wheel or of a circular ima ge. Actually, the central metaphor of the novel is also that of a circle. Joe Christmas is the central character of the novel. His story is the hub or cen ter of the novel, and the circular image is first applied to Joe as a cage which keeps him isolated from mankind. The earliest instance of his isolation is seen in his life in the orphanage. Later in life, he thinks of women, marriage, and children as additional ways to keep men caged in. He even cuts off all buttons a gain the circular image that women have sewed on his clothes. But the strongest symbol of his imprisonment in a cage is expressed through the conflicting white and black blood in his veins. Basically, the circular image is the principal ima ge with Joe, as his life is presented in cyclic repetitions seen in the manner i n which he constantly travels around the country until he finally arrives in Jef ferson, Mississippi. Although Joe has spent his entire life trying to break out of his circle, he fin ally realizes that he has lived only when he has remained within the circle. Thu s, he attains peace through self-realization only when he reaches an acceptance

of his life and no longer tries to flee from the responsibility of his actions. Joe, in other words comes finally to realize that his lifetime struggle was futi le, since man can never escape from himself. The acceptance of this fact gives h im the first peace of mind that he has ever had. The circular image is used, therefore, to correlate the action with the structur e. The central scene of the novel is Joanna Burden's house, and the cabin behind her house where Joe lives is described as the axle of a wheel where the numerou s paths are like "wheel-spokes" caused by the Negro women "following paths which . . . radiated from the house." It is here at this place (the axle) where Joe m urders Joanna Burden and it is also where Lena Grove later gives birth to her ch ild. The circular image, however, is first presented through Lena Grove. Her curving shape caused by her pregnancy suggests that she is "like something moving . . . , without progress across an urn." The urn, then, is used symbolically in connec tion with Lena to suggest her enduring qualities. It is also one of the many sym bols that connect life with death, since the urn is also used in burial rites. Other images suggest the completeness with which Lena views life, and how she is fully immersed in a timeless world of natural surroundings. The final image of the first section is the circular column of smoke rising from Joanna Burden's ho use which again connects Lena to Joe Christmas' actions. Lena, therefore, with h er earthy nature, seems to represent those qualities which will endure forever; and the circular images connected with her (and with the action in general) sugg ests Ecclesiastes 1:4-6: "A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the ear th remains forever. The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the plac e where it rises. The wind blows to the south, and goes round to the north; roun d and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns." Likewise, Ligh t in August opens and closes with sections about Lena Grove. Structurally, therefore, the circular image is used to suggest connections betwe en Joe and Lena, to bring out certain qualities for which Lena stands and to act as an encompassing frame for the whole novel. She is the outside frame for the whole novel and the outside frame of the wheel (circle) transversing all experie nce and centering on no particular or specific experience. Thus Joe's actions form the central part of the novel and are seen as the hub of the actions, but Lena's actions are used to introduce the novel and close the n ovel. In between these two stands the figure of the Reverend Gail Hightower. Whe reas we meet Lena before we meet Joe, we also meet Hightower before we meet Joe. He is introduced immediately following the Lena (and Byron Bunch) section, and his section immediately precedes the closing scene of the novel. If then, the ce nter or hub of the novel is the Joe Christmas section, Hightower stands between the center and the outside rim and connects the two. Thus, Hightower may be roug hly compared to the spokes of the wheel, for through him the two strands of the novel are brought into a unity. But then how does Hightower act as the spokes or connecting links between Lena a nd Joe? First the central metaphor connected with Hightower is that of the wheel . We see this image in the last part of the novel when Hightower begins to exami ne his life of isolation. As he reviews his life, his thinking "begins to slow" as though it were a "wheel beginning to run in sand." Hightower is then forced t o re-examine all of his past life, which, for the first time, he is able to see objectively. As the wheel slowly frees itself from the sand, Hightower gradually realizes that life cannot be lived in isolation. Hightower's involvement, however, was forced upon him. Byron Bunch involves him with Lena until finally it becomes his task to deliver Lena's child. Hightower t hen may be seen as the spokes, since he was forced to travel the same paths that Joe has traveled in order to help Lena with the birth of her child. Hightower r eturns from this place, which is Joe Christmas' house and the place where he had murdered Joanna Burden. And suddenly Joe Christmas escapes from the posse and f lees for sanctuary into Hightower's house. Thus, Hightower comes from the birth of Lena's child only to be involved in the death of Joe Christmas. Therefore, in terms of the total structure of the novel, High-tower is the spoke s of the wheel connecting the actions of Lena and Joe, who never actually meet e

ach other. Lena remains as the person transcending all experiences, and Joe is t he character whose life is examined in depth in the center of the novel. The fin al structure then, may be summarized as follows: first, Lena (the rim or frame f or the action); second, Hightower (the spokes of the wheel) and then Joe Christm as (the hub of the wheel). And the novel closes in exactly the same order after we have completed the actions connected with Joe Christmas, the novel focuses ag ain on Hightower and then closes with Lena. Thus briefly, the novel runs: Lena H ightower JOE CHRISTMAS Hightower Lena.