Light in August Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Light In August is a 1932 novel by William Faulkner.
“Light in August” is a tour de force exploration of racial conflict in the society of the Southern States. The title of the book was inspired by the special light that illuminates Mississippi in August, and that seems to come from the far past. This underlinines Faulkner's interest in the weight of history and the manner in which we relate to our pasts.
The narrative structure consists of three connected plot-strands. The first strand tells the story of Lena Grove, a young pregnant woman who is trying to find the father of her unborn child. With that purpose she leaves her home town and walks several hundreds miles afoot to Jefferson, a town in Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha country. There she is supported by Byron Bunch, an employee in the planing mill who falls in love to Lena and hopes to marry her. Despite of his love Lena moves to Tennessee after the birth of her child. Lena is a simple child of nature, representing positive human qualities like innocence and endurance. Her journey in August and the birth of her child are symbolic of the eternal cycle of nature.
The narrative plot of Lena’s story is also circular, i.e. it builds a framework around the two other plot-strands. One of these is the story of Joe Christmas who is an enigmatic person appearing from nowhere and disappearing to nowhere again, leaving a trace of devastation and hate behind him.
One day he comes to the planing mill in Jefferson and asks for a job. The work at the planning mill is just a cover up for his illegal alcohol business. Because of Christmas’ overt scorn towards the other characters, he could be viewed as a symbolical Negro figure who is hostile towards the whole of Jefferson society and the values it represents. His only social or, rather sexual, relation is to Joanna Burden, who is the sole descendant of a former powerful abolitionist family. Joanna Burden’s brother and grandfather, two civil right activists, were both gunned down at daylight. Joanna Burden herself continues her ancestors' struggle for Black emancipation, which, like Christmas, makes her an outsider in the society of Jefferson.
Her relationship with Christmas begins rather disturbingly, with an ambiguous episode in which sexual abuse is suggested, and it ends in disaster. As a result of sexual frustration and the beginning of her menopause, she turns to a religion. On the climax of her relation to Christmas she tries to force him, by threatening him with a gun, to admit publicly his black ancestry and to join a black law firm. But the old gun jams, and Christmas kills her with a razor blade. After the murder of Joanna Burden Christmas sets her house on fire to cover up the traces and flees.
Thanks to a tip-off by Lucas Burch (alias Joe Brown), Christmas' previous business partner in the moon-shining venture and the father of Lena’s child, Christmas is caught. During his unsuccessful escape attempt, Christmas is castrated by a national Guardsman named Percy Grimm and consequently lynched by a mob.
The third plot strand tells the story of Reverend Gail Hightower. He is obsessed by the past adventures of his Confederate grandfather, who was killed while stealing a few chickens from a farmer's shed. Hightower’s community dislikes him because of his sermons about his dead grandfather, and because of the scandal surrounding his personal life: his wife committed adultery, and later killed herself, turning the town's community against Hightower and effectively turning him into a pariah. The only character who does not turn his back on the Reverend is Byron Bunch who visits Hightower from time to time. Bunch also tries to convince the Reverend to give the imprisoned Christmas an alibi, but Hightower refuses. When Christmas hides in the house of the Reverend on his escape, Hightower accepts Byron's suggestion, although by then it will be too late.
At the end of the novel the Reverend helps Lena to deliver her baby, a circumstance that helps him break his inner isolation and makes him feel his approaching death.
All characters in “Light in August” are multidimensional, i.e. each one is subject and object, observer and observed, self-crucified and crucified by others, villain and victim.
In this novel, Faulkner was influenced by European literally stylistics and conventions, like the stream-of-conscious technique, necessary to explore the innermost recesses of the psyche of the characters. The novel's narrative is not organized chronologically, as it is interrupted by, at times lengthy, flashbacks. The main focus of the narration constantly shifts from one character to another. Other significant stylistic devices are the numerous interior monologues that Faulkner uses to achieve the utmost authenticity in his characters' voices. “Light in August” is framed by an omniscient 3rd person narrator, whose omniscience enables the reader to understand the motives behind the behavior of different characters and the complex interrelations among them, as well as the connections between the different episodes of the text.
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