AS205: Inbetween Peoples

After completing the second half of Faulkner’s Light in August, it becomes clear that one of the “old verities” and “truths of heart” which he seeks is inevitably identity. Several characters in this novel grapple with the notion of who they are, where they come from, and most significantly, where they are going. Joe Christmas is one of the more obvious cases, as even from the very beginning he is constantly searching for clues to his past, clues to where he belongs. The toothpaste incident that we discussed in class is an early representation of this confusion, since when the dietician gives Joe the dollar “he did not believe that she would give it to him, because he would not give it to her if it were his. He didn’t know what she wanted him to do” (125). This instance gravely affects him, since Joe thought he was fairly certain of what would happen to him, yet this woman treats him in a way that he had never before been treated, causing him to question who he is and why his expected outcome (i.e. punishment) did not come to pass.

Joe has a similar conflict of identity when Ms. Burden brings up the concept of having a child with him. He thinks, “Why not? It would mean ease, security, for the rest of your life. You would never have to move again. And you might as well be married to her as this”, but then also thinking “No. If I give in now, I will deny all the thirty years that I have lived to make me what I chose to be” (265). This is the central issue that Joe has with his own being—that which he would ideally like to have, and that what he feels he deserves, which he masks as what he “chose”.

Finally, Joe’s vacillating identity is summed up when the people of Mottstown describe his capture, in that “He never acted like either a nigger or a white man. That was it. That was what made folks so mad. For him to be a murderer and all dressed up and walking the town like he dared them to touch him, when he ought to have been skulking and hiding in the woods… It was like he never even know he was a murderer, let alone a nigger too” (350). In this way, what seems to make the white townspeople so mad is that Joe never acts the way he should, i.e. like a black person. However, for Joe, the central issue is that he believes he should be able to act however he pleases, yet that he only deserves to act a certain way. He is thus unable to both live up to the expectations of those that surround him as well as those of himself, creating a paradox where he simply cannot belong.

Lena, on the other hand, seems refreshingly comfortable in the fact that she does not know where she is going or where she might end up. As discussed in class, she simply seems to think that it will all work itself out, even from the very beginning in that “she sits quite still, hearing and feeling the implacable and immemorial earth, but without fear or alarm” (29). This kind of uncertain tranquility seems to perplex others, in particular Byron and Hightower, who argue over her fate. Byron offers to find another place for her (other than Ms. Burden’s cabin), but Hightower insists “Why must she move? When she is comfortable there, with a woman at hand if she should need one” (299). This argument is representative of the tension of who Lena should be (someone with a better place to go) versus who she is (someone who is “comfortable” in her current state).

Perhaps Faulkner’s most telling assertion on this question of identity is seen quite abruptly—through who lives and who dies. Joe Christmas is killed, aptly, by a man whose gripe against Joe is that once dead, “Now you’ll let white women alone, even in hell” (464). In this way, Joe’s life is ended by someone who simply cannot grasp that Joe does not know his place, does not realize who he is supposed to be. Lena, on the other hand, is comfortable with her lack of identity, as observed by the driver of her truck, who comments, “I don’t think she had any idea of finding whoever it was she was following. I don’t think she ever aimed to…I think she had just made up her mind to travel a little further and see as much as she could since I reckon she knew that when she settled down this time, it would likely be for the rest of her life” (506). Lena is thus somewhat the antithesis of Joe, in that while he desperately does want to “settle” and know who he is, she is comfortable not knowing, and understands that eventually that knowledge will come. Until then however, she is simply content to let “a body get around” (507).

In William Faulkner’s novel Light in August several of the characters find that they are participants in several races, whether voluntarily or not. The three main characters that find themselves as the participants are Lena Grove, Joe Brown and Joe Christmas.

Lena Grove is on a race against time to marry the father of her baby before it is born. Although she does not succeed in getting married before giving birth to her son, she does gain a devoted protector from her time in Jefferson in the form of Byron Bunch. Although Lena refuses to allow Byron to be anything more that a friend, he helps her continue on her journey to chase down the father of her child. Thus, although the novel ends with Lena still in pursuit of Joe Brown, society continues to help her in the forms of charitable assistance from strangers and protection from Byron.

Joe Brown is in a race to escape owning up to the responsibility of being a father to the son he has with Lena Grove. He is able to take on a new name and move to a new town in order to start a new life. He believes for a while that he has escaped his past. Although Joe Brown is forced to flee town before he is able to collect the one thousands dollar reward he so desperately wants, he does escape the responsibly of being a father to his son by Lena Grove. Thus, he is able to continue on his journey of recreating himself and attempting to escape from the responsibilities from his past.

Finally, Joe Christmas is on a race against the law, his past, and his rage. He can run from the police and hounds that track him but what might be what scares him more is that he can not run from himself. He carries with him an all consuming rage that frequently gets the better of him, resulting in pain to those around him and himself. Yet, unlike Lena Grove and Joe Brown, Joe Christmas is not able to continue on his race. His mixed racial identity traps Christmas from continuing on his desired race. This inability of Joe Christmas to run from not only his past but also himself signifies that, in the society that Faulkner writes about, race is the end all be all. Christmas’s biracial identity makes it impossible for Christmas to find a place that he can peacefully coexist within his society.

In contrast, Joe Brown’s whiteness is the attribute that makes it possible for him to convince the sheriff and his deputes believe Brown’s story of how Joe Christmas murdered Miss Burden. It is also this attribute that also allows Brown to be trusted enough to help in the tracking of Joe Christmas and, a the request of others, to be taken out of jail and brought to his wife and son.

It is no coincidence that the person who killed Joe Christmas was a white supremacist. It quite literally constructs the idea that race predetermines peoples fate. Although at the close of the novel Lena and Joe Brown are still participating in their own respective races, Joe Christmas can no longer run. He has been destroyed due to his inability to fit into the protected whiteness of Faulkner’s Light in August.

Most people would agree that Joe Christmas is one of the angriest characters in a book that is full of angry people.  One of the focuses of Joe’s anger is towards religion.  While religion has a fascinating and seemingly contradictory role throughout the novel, Joe’s hatred towards religion is pure.

Joe Christmas is a man who is often at odds with himself.  It seems as though many times the things that he wants most, he instinctively rejects.  It is as though he is afraid of becoming too comfortable.  At one point in the novel, he believes that Miss Burden will ask him to marry her, and he considers that it will make his life significantly easier.  However, he believes that this will make all the years that he spent wandering around (by choice) a waste.

While Joe is a wanderer, he also seems to crave some kind of certainty.  He deeply wants to know who he is, and perhaps all of his travels are actually in search of himself.  It is strange that Joe has such hatred for religion, as it has often been viewed as something which provides comfort to those who are uncertain.

Perhaps Joe Christmas’s loathing for religion is because he himself is ambiguous, and religion exists in the realm of absolutes.  While Joe may truly seek certainty, he exists in the realm of ambiguity.  Throughout his troubled life, he has been uncertain of his race, his parentage, etc.  Although religion might be able to give him comfort, it also serves as a constant reminder that he is not fully a member of his community.

It is also important to remember that race and ethnicity played a huge role in religious worship at that time.  Religious communities were segregated, and when Joe enters a black church, it causes an uproar and he is accused of being the devil.  Undeterred, he moves to the front of the church and harangues the congregation, denouncing religion and destroying the church.

While it is impossible to determine where Joe’s religious hatred springs from, it is likely that it is bound up with his conceptions of race, morality, and self.  For Christmas, none of these things are clearly defined.  Although some would argue that religion could have helped to shape these for him, it was not a struggle that Joe was willing to take on.

Looking over Lauren’s post from last week and in light of our conversation in class, I have some follow up thoughts on the ideas about the portrayal of women in the book. Finishing the second half of the book, it seems to me that the novel’s notions of the female creature have shifted, in so far as the outcome and characterization of two of the most important women who reside in this half of the work. Lena Grove, when all is said and done, seems to escape from the seemingly binary and derogatory characterizations that Lauren pointed out: that each women is, in addition to being a sinner, either a barren old-women or a whore who is degraded by the words of Faulkner’s characters.

The comment that I made last week on the blog was that I didn’t think we could judge the characterization of women until the novel was over, and that I believed (I actually did) that Lena was our only avenue into the Faulkner’s authentic view of women—one that combines the elements of his own personal belief with the construction of the character in time and place and device.  Lena’s journey throughout the novel gives us the best idea of women in Light in August.

While Lena starts out on the journey by herself, walking from Alabama to Mississippi, very pregnant, and with the hope of finding the man who left her with child and without money.  As she navigates through the first half of the novel, her ridiculous naiveté doesn’t get her in much trouble and encounters people more willing to help her than even the father of her own child.  Eventually, she has her child with the help of another woman, no less, and eventually readies herself to leave Jefferson.  She does all of this with a considerable amount of aplomb, though, even in the face of Brown getting away from the responsibility that he has bestowed upon her.

However, I think the fact that Lena is able to pick up and go, to get in the truck towards Tennessee shows how strong that she is, and Faulkner’s actually view that in the face of the most horrible and trying circumstances, and eventually, as they neared the border, when she is “further away from home than she could walk back before sundown in her life” (506) Lena finally is at a point where she’ll be at peace.  Byron returned, she has her child and is driving in the truck, and out of all of this, the truck driver says that, “she had just made up her mind to travel a little further and see as much as she could, since I reckon she knew that when she settled down this time, it would likely be for the rest of her life.” (506). At the end of the novel, Lena has made peace.  While she’s still moving, she has moved far enough to overcome the two primary characterizations of women: she was once a fallen sinner, but now has borne a child and found a man and will find a place to be and live.  Lena, then, shows the power of women to overcome what could be considered the worst circumstances in the novel, and is one of the few to escape Jefferson for comic ending and peace that can be had outside.  She breaks the stereotypes of the first half of the novel to become the winner in the male-dominated world and maintains her values and hope, through the help of others, the move her from naïve to a certain level of knowledge about the world.