Faulkner's Light in August: themes and analysis

¶ … Nature of Man Explored in William Faulkner's Light in August

William Faulkner's novel, Light in August, represents the complicated nature of life, mankind's complicated responses to life, and the intrepid spirit of all men. Faulkner presents us with characters that face complex circumstances and what we find mesmerizing is the very nature to which each individual responds to his or her circumstances. While the novel is present in third person narrative, Faulkner does allow us to understand the point-of-view of several key characters in the novel. These points-of-view help us understand how the community of Jefferson operates. Sexuality and trauma emerge in the novel as obstacles to be overcome. As is the case is real life, some do well to overcome while others do not. One of the most predominant aspects of the story includes the effect religion plays upon the community. Jefferson's moral foundation is constructed around certain beliefs and to fit in; one generally goes along with these beliefs without making much trouble. Those who do not accept the beliefs are known for it and often ostracized. These issues loom heavy over the lives of Lena Grove, Joe Christmas and Gail Hightower. Each character deals with difficulties in a different way, reinforcing the complexity of man. Faulkner demonstrates through these characters the fragility and strength born to every man and how each man emerges from them depends upon his reaction to his circumstance.

Most of the novel is presented in third-person narrative, allowing Faulkner to reveal exactly what he wants us to know about the characters. Through very interesting and realistic characters, Faulkner allows us to see how event shape one's point-of-view. An example is Byron Bunch who, according to Wendy Perkins, becomes the "moral conscience of the novel as he observes the townspeople of Jefferson City and declares, 'people everywhere are about the same'" (Perkins). Bunch's point-of-view brings the actions of others under scrutiny, especially pointing out how those who do fit in the community are treated for being different. This is an important aspect of the novel because it is closely linked with the notion of religion and Puritanical restraints. Bunch is convinced that evil is more difficult for one to accomplish when living in a small community such as Jackson. Because of this interesting phenomenon, people can invent evil from nothing more than knowing an individual's name. This is significant to put understanding of those in Jefferson and all of humanity as well. With this notion, Bunch is bringing to light the idea that all we need as creatures looking for something to devour is a morsel, a "that single idle word blown from mind to mind'" (Perkins). Perkins points out how this is crucial in the novel because it reveals "the disastrous effects the community can have on the individual who tries to establish a sense of independence" (Perkins). This point-of-view set the stage for things to emerge in the novel, beginning with Lena and then merging her story with his as they become two characters in the same small community.

The Puritanical overtones in the novel are essential to understanding how Faulkner frames situations and characters. Hightower's criticism of organized religion represents the "most powerful attack upon the forces of patriarchal repression and white supremacy in the novel" (Lutz), according to John Lutz. Hightower becomes a voice of philosophy in the novel because of his humanistic point-of-view and his rejections of Jefferson's strict social mores. He refuses to be manipulated by the town and the petty dispositions of its members. We see Hightower embark upon a journey that leads him to a certain knowledge about himself that is rather spectacular. He comes to accept himself in a way that is remarkable in contrast with some of the other characters in the novel. Of the three primary characters at the center of the novel, Hightower, Lena, and Joe, Hightower does the least to act on what he learns, or accepts, from life. Hightower is similar to Lena and Joe because he does endeavor to recoup his pride. He successfully learns to live in the world he has created for himself. This world is not realistic because it is not the real world in which everyone else lives. From his point-of-view, his life is over already and he seems fairly adjusted to this idea until involvement with Lean and Byron bring him out of his reclusive shell. Hightower is damaged like Lena and Joe are damaged and he does eventually make peace with his life and his past, accepting the fact that pain is unavoidable regardless of how far removed one might make oneself. Lutz maintains an important aspect of Hightower's presence and point-of-view in the novel and the calling of attention to the function of religion through creating fundamental assumptions that are in direct opposition to what Hightower believes. Lutz states, "Hightower's insight directly challenges racist and sexist ideology. Furthermore, in Hightower's narrative, the imagery of Plato's cave is used to deconstruct the very assumptions which underwrite idealism" (Lutz). Faulkner frames Joe's story through this prism. Hightower's point-of-view allows us to look at Joe's life from the perspective of someone on the outside of religion and the outskirts of town. Similarly, Lena's story frames Hightower's life because it serves as "both a substitution and an atonement for the history represented by Joe's story" (Lutz) by reasserting the "idealism but transforms it into a means of challenging the racist and patriarchal ideology which it originally informed" (Lutz). Faulkner encapsulates both thread of history in this community to demonstrate the importance of wise choices.

Hightower is a strange man in that he refuses to leave the community that ostracizes him. Hightower was an energetic and "gleeful" (Faulkner 52) preacher when he arrived in Jefferson. He spoke wild in the pulpit "using religion as though it were a dream. Not a nightmare, but something which went faster than the words in the Book"(53). He was fixated on the Civil War and spoke too often about it. Hightower was not a favorite among those in Jefferson, however. Had he been a "more dependable kind of man, the kind of man a minister should be instead of being born about thirty years after the only day he seemed to ever lived in" (Faulkner), the town might have been more open to him. The incident with his wife and the controversy surrounding it made that practically impossible. Hightower is his own man, regardless of what the members of Jefferson do. Things transpire as if both parties simply forget about what happened with Hightower and his wife and move on to other happenings in the town. Hightower thinks, "I am not in life anymore . . . that's why there is no use in even trying to meddle, interfere" (Faulkner 263). This attitude demonstrates Hightower's sense of loss. He has lost his reason to live and he is not even compelled to leave the town that destroyed him. Hightower says he is not a man of God but that this lot in life is not of his own accord. He says, "Not of my own choice that I am no longer a man of God. It was by the will . . . Of them like you and like her and like him in the jail" (319). What this circumstances allows us to see, however, is the depth people will go to support their own dogged beliefs. Jefferson is filled with narrow-minded individuals and self-righteous bigots and this thread runs through the entire novel. It is central to the town's existence and it never goes away. It festers in the souls of man and as long as they keep it alive, it will keep them from forming real bonds and connecting with others.

This intersection of social criticism and religious persecution is where when Lena arrives and it is there when she leaves. During her stay, we see it destroy many lives, although Lena seems to be spared from this terrible fate. Perkins believes this is because "she is trying, in their view, to rectify her sin by marrying Brown" (Perkins). Interestingly, Lena does end up leaving Jefferson "more perhaps to get away from the restrictive values of the community than to find Brown" (Perkins). This is significant to understanding the psyche of man. More importantly, we see how Lena has enough sense to realize the mores of the community were not for her and she did not want to raise a child in that kind of environment. Faulkner uses Lena and her passage through Jefferson to expose the dramatic forces at work in post-Civil War white southern societies. The line between whites and blacks is not tangible but it is very noticeable and, as a result, alienation will occur -- not by accident but purely by design. It is important to realize that in some societies, this otherness is perceived as evil in some situations. That undefined but recognizable line between races only exacerbates the separation between individuals and we see how deep this separation goes with Joanna's grandfather and brother. Faulkner masterfully weaves lives in and out of this fabric, demonstrating the importance of self-identity as well as social acceptance. Light in August, however, draws more attention to how the conflicts and differences between race, gender, and social constraints are destructive forces.

The birth of Lena's child "holds out the promise of a new age that transcends the social contradictions that Joe's violent tale bears witness to" (Lutz), according to Lutz. Furthermore, Faulkner looks toward the future with the birth of this child to this meek woman. Lena is comfortable with herself and she copes well hen others choose to judge her by her unwed status. This is a striking contrast to how Joe chooses to deal with how others perceive him. Lena may not be able to see the future but she is confident she can unearth some hope in it somewhere. Mrs. Hines response to the child suggests a "kind of primal innocence that precedes the shadows of racist and patriarchal ideology" (Lutz) in the novel, according to Lutz. Her "unknown tongue" (Lutz) is "tied thematically to the growing light of dawn" (Lutz) and it "presents the possibility of a language and a culture not imprisoned by distinctions of race and gender, a society where the shadows will be dispelled and the distortions of the cave left behind" (Lutz). With the exception of Doc Hines, the characters that witness the birth of Lena's child subscribe to "values of sympathy and compassion which set them apart from the puritanical, rigid moral codes of the majority of the townspeople" (Lutz). This birth and the young family moving toward a future unknown represent hope in the world and demonstrate what it takes to face that hope. They are moving away from Jefferson and for which it stands. They believe the future is brighter somewhere else. It takes courage to move from one's present circumstances into the unknown but these two do it and become "symbols of the possibility of a new social order" (Lutz). Faulkner leaves us with this image, knowing the world they left behind will not be missed.

Trauma, as life experience, connects characters in a myriad of ways. Two characters whose lives fall together and stay connection because of trauma are Joe and Joanna. Both of these characters suffered at the hands of others when they were young and the pain they experienced in those early developmental stages in their lives never left them. In fact, it was still shaping them. Joe experiences on of the most painful of all traumas and that is not knowing who he is. As a baby, Joe is abandoned at an orphanage with no real hope of discovering his parents. Joe does not look black or white definitively. He could pass as either one in any southern community. His lack of knowledge about his past and his parents promise him a life of being nothing but a stranger wherever he goes. Wherever he lands, he is lost before he even begins. Faulkner sheds light on his daily struggle of facing the fact that he may never know who he is. While Joanna was not physically abused as a child, she deed experience trauma and while this trauma might have been "more subtle than Joe's" (Sills), it is "equally devastating" (Sills). This memory, along with many others is something Joe cannot erase from his mind. We all experience painful events and we must learn to deal with them in our own terms. As a teenager, Joe encounters more experiences that only make him more unsure of himself. His encounter with the waitress is as example of how Joe loses his footing because he has nothing on which he can fall. This begins a cycle of self-debasement for Joe. He has no sense of self so he drifts from one experience to the next. This kind of existence leads to an acceptance of violent tendencies.

Men find ways to cope with what life presents to them. Joe, with his burdens and trauma, is clearly a spokesperson for what not to do in a community. We can feel compassion for Joe to a certain extent because his story is pitiful and even dreadful to consider. However, Joe fails to reach his potential because he allows his past and the pain it brings to control each and every moment of his life. This can only lead to bitterness and rage. With Joe, Faulkner is presenting us with someone conflicted from the inside out with no easily achievable solution to disentangle with torments him. Sills contends that in order for Joe to feel accepted as white, his anger "needs to destroy any threat that Negroes might accept him as one of their own" (Sills). Sills point out that the absurdity with this scenario is while "questioning his whiteness, he is alternately attracted to and repelled by Negroes" (Sills). What Joe fails to consider is the fact that he can be welcomed by both races. Joe does not ever feel as though he is worthy of this and thus never truly attempts to accomplish this feat. It may not have been as easy for him to do but it was an alternative he never seriously considered. This keeps him living on the edge of two kinds of existence: one black and one white. This might seem appealing at the onset but Joe illustrates how it is not. Joe knows nothing of who he is and does not know if he is black or white and this unknowing trips him up every time he takes a step.

Joanna is connected to Joe through trauma. Joanna's trauma is different from Joe's in that she did not experience the reality of it first hand. Sills points out this trauma is still significant because it literally shapes every aspect of her life. The fact that her grandfather and half-brother killed "over a question of negro voting" (Faulkner 253) coupled with the event of her father taking her into the darkened cedar grove to see the unmarked graves, proves to be a frightening experience for a child. Her father tells her to remember the graves and remember that the white is cursed by the black one. Sills suggests that her father's guilt becomes Joanna's "burden in much the same way as Joe was encumbered by not knowing who or what his birth father was" (Sills). Behind both of these events lies the shrouded ghost of religion. Sills contends that within almost every community, organized religion "demands certain behavior patterns of the individual who, if he or she cannot comply, will be outcast by the majority who prescribe to a particular moral code" (Sills). Joe and Joanna fit this prescription because they "exist outside of a society defined by its religious presumption" (Sills). Interestingly, these two individuals are shaped by religious and social mores and subsequently "victimized by its indifference through not only its institutions, but also by those whom its institutions sanction as authorities" (Sills). It is a curious situation, as Sills points out, the South was a victim of the North and yet the South did its own share of victimizing and traumatizing the lives of others. Sills maintains Faulkner "suggests that Southern society's racial prejudice and demagoguery are at the root of both Joe's and Joanna's inability to accept their otherness as defined and imposed by that society" (Sills). Both of these characters experienced at young ages the "consequences of individual and collective indifference to the Other, the one who is different, who is silenced by ignorance or fear, who accepts rejection as his or her due" (Sills). This rejection is something neither Joe nor Joanna could escape through his or her own devices. They could not raise themselves above their circumstances long enough to see what else life could offer them. They were swimming in the mire of puritanical hate but they could not realize it because they were influenced at such an early age.

Memories taint reality. Joe's reality is tainted by the memory of what he does not know while Joanna experiences a type of double existence. She chooses to live isolated from the community yet she is involved with various programs. She is threatened by members of the community yet she is still compelled to support African-American education to ease her conscience. According to Sills, Joe's moving in with her is an act that forces him to accept the alienation he feels from Jefferson. The two are bound to each other and they both experience "self-rejection grounded in guilt" (Sills). Sills explains that to be bound up with self-pity is to be stuck and nothing illustrates this more than these two people living on the outskirts of Jefferson, isolated in from everyone. This is an image for death, explains Sills, while, for Faulkner, "life is defined by action, even if such action is propelled by guilt" (Sills). Moving is better than staying still and these two move headlong into their disastrous future without hardly moving at all.

If movement represents life, then it only makes sense that Faulkner bring us back to Lena. Lena emerges as the hope and promise of the novel. In the last chapter, she is moving away from Jefferson, indicating that she is freeing herself from the past as moving toward a better future. Lena is a sharp contrast to Joe throughout the entire novel, their lives intersecting only because they both live in the same town. She arrives on the day that Joe is leaving Jefferson. Lena is on a mission to find the father of her child but her mission transforms as she becomes a delicate force that differs wildly from Joe's violent nature. Sills maintains that Lena's search for Lucas "frames the tragedy of Joe and Joanna and helps us understand their failure to accept change or survive disillusionment without reacting destructively" (Sills). These characters are all haunted by something in their pasts. However, Joe and Joanna "resist conforming to values imposed by a Pharisaical society" (Sills) and what they bring with them into the present "renders them powerless to accept the future" (Sills). This is a classic situation where individuals learn, grow, and find a chance at happiness when they learn to let go of the past. Joe and Joanna experience difficulty do this. They are shameful because of their pasts and cannot look beyond them. Lena, on the other hand, is "unhampered by Calvinistic literalism and rejects the shame of behaviour outside of socially constructed morality" (Sills). Yet, she has faith that the "Lord will see that what is right will get done" (Faulkner, Light 18). Lena possesses "something tranquil and unafraid" (Faulkner 423) and it is this "tranquility and optimism that contrasts so dramatically with Joe's and Joanna's tragedies" (Sills). It is worth noting that their circumstances are not exactly equal. Lena is not victimized by society like Joe and Joanna but it also worth noting that part of this stems from the fact that Lena "instinctively accommodates the past into the present and can adapt as necessary to get where she intends to go in the future, both metaphorically and in real time" (Sills). Lena does what Faulkner insists we all must do if we are to continue growing and living, which is move. Lena continues to move and she is "hopeful and confident" (Sills) at the end of the novel, which is another step in the right direction. Here we see how Faulkner is emphasizing how we can successfully change the course of our lives by simply changing the thoughts of our minds. We cannot change the past, as these characters demonstrate, but we can change how it affects us. We can let it haunt us or we can realize that it is a shadow but still move beyond whatever pain may be therein.

Faulkner demonstrates through Lena and Joe just how much of our lives are dictated by the past -- if we choose to let the past have control of our future. Joe carries his insecurity of who he is into every relationship. We have already discussed Joanna but Joe's relationship with Billie is worth mentioning because it affects him. She betrays him in a way no one else does. He is able to confide in her and he would do anything for her. Their relationship is unique because Joe is able to allow her to be in a relationship with a man that is not based upon a business exchange. In this sense, they help each other for a short time but ultimately Bobbie resorts to the prevailing social codes of the community while her friends beat him up for being African-American. This relationship coupled with his childhood experience of witnessing sex gives Joe a rather skewed impression of sex. He does grow up thinking it is fun, good, or healthy and he is convinced there should be a certain element of fear involved during sexual encounters. This explains why he is so violent with women and it also explains why things end so disastrously with Joanna. He cannot control her and he does not frighten her, so he rids himself of her the only way he knows how. Lena knows another way of coping and escaping. She packs her bags and takes to the open road. She may not know where she is going but she had a pretty good indication that she is on the right track. She does not have anyone telling her what she is doing is right but she does not have anyone telling her what she is doing is wrong either. She has just enough hope to keep her moving and that makes all the difference in this community.