Disjointed Characters of Faulkner's Light in August

1451 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Lilies of the field character analysis

Disjointed Characters of A Light in August

In the novel, A Light in August, William Faulkner introduces us to a wide range of characters of various backgrounds and personalities. Common to all of them is the fact that each is type cast into a certain role in the novel and in society. Lena is the poor, white trash southern girl who serves to weave the story together. Hightower is the fanatic preacher who is the dark, shameful secret of Jefferson. Joanna Burden is the middle-aged maiden from the north who is often accused of being a “nigger-lover”. And Joe Christmas is the epitome of an outsider. None of them are conventional, everyday people. They are all in some way disjointed from society; they do not fit in with the crowd. That is what makes them intriguing and that is why Faulkner documents their story.

Percy Grimm is another such character and he plays a vital role in the novel. He is the one to finally terminate Joe Christmas, who has been suffering his entire life. Grimm is the enforcer, the one man who will uphold American pride at all costs. He also stands for everything in the world that has held Christmas back. He is the prototype of the ruthless enemy who is the source of all of Christmas¹ struggles. And Christmas can never escape him. He can run, as he has been doing all his life and as he does in his desperate attempt to escape. But he can never hide, as he tries to do at Hightower¹s and as he has been hiding his true self from the world he hates so much. Percy Grimm represents the unmerciful society that has restrained and persecuted Joe Christmas; it is only fitting that he should be the one to finally bring him down in the end. Percy Grimm was born into the American south and grew up to be a ...

... middle of paper ...

...anage after he has sabotaged his existence there. He kills McEachern and runs away from home. He gets beaten and robbed on his final night with Bobbie. And he finally snaps and kills Joanna Burden and runs away for the last time. As he runs through the woods during his final few moments on earth, he is relentlessly chased by Percy Grimm, his enemy and torturer. In one last desperate attempt to escape, he hides at Hightower¹s and is subsequently discovered and executed without mercy. But by this time, he is at peace with himself, knowing that he will no longer be forced to run and hide from anything. The society that holds him with such disdain has finally won their eternal battle. But he just does not care anymore. Joe Christmas surrenders to Percy Grimm with apathetic contentment.

Works Cited:

Faulkner, William. Light in August. 1932. New York: Vintage, 1987.

Show More
Related

  • Faulkner's The Eighth Day: A Fiction Book

    914 Words  | 2 Pages

    If you haven’t you’re missing out. Its about a boy that learns he’s part of a secret society of people called Transitioners that are able to go through a eight day of the week.

    Read More

  • Why Is Lake Mungo Important

    901 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mungo Lady was found first in 1968 he was investigating the area, and saw what looked like burnt bones so he decided to bring in some archaeologists. The following year, two archaeologists investigated them and discovered a human jaw.

    Read More

  • Contrasting Lucas Beauchamp of Go Down, Moses and Joe Christmas of Light in August

    5436 Words  | 11 Pages

    Environment is key to understanding Faulkner's characters.   Daniel J. Singal argues Faulkner's intentions of creating Lucas Beauchamp as a "model transitional identity," a bridge from Jim Crowism to the end of segregation (268).  Segregation produces a structure of society that feels threatened by that which cannot be arranged into the roles of hierarchy. Andre Bleikasten states, "To divide is to pass judgment, to name the categories of good and evil, to assign them to fixed locations, and to draw between them boundaries not to be crossed" (326). Jefferson society divides its citizens into categories of black and white. Each individual knows where he or she stands; each knows at a glance which category every other citizen belongs to, and treats others accordingly. Any deviation from this structure is a threat to the society (326). In Light in August, Joe Christmas poses such a threat to Jefferson society because he is able to cross the boundaries. He looks white, but allegedly has black blood.

    Read More

  • Embryonic Stem Cells Research, A List of Topics and Sub-Topics

    2164 Words  | 5 Pages

    “In particular, sacrificing human embryos would fundamentally depart from the long-honored Hippocratic ethic which teaches, ‘First do not harm.’” (William Cheshire)

    Read More

  • The Untraditional Life of William Faulkner

    563 Words  | 2 Pages

    The South is tradition, in every aspect of the word: family, profession, and lifestyle. The staple to each tradition in the south, and ultimately masculinity, is to be a southern gentleman. William Faulkner, a man with the most southern of blood running through his veins, was everything but a southern gentleman.

    Read More

  • Chemistry: Acids and Base Theories

    671 Words  | 2 Pages

    Indicators are substances that change color according to the acidic and basic properties of their surroundings. There are many different indicators that shows different pH levels and some are beyond in the table.

    Read More

  • Typical and Atypical Abuse

    3627 Words  | 8 Pages

    There are a few parents who choose to educate their children at home so the students will not come into contact with controversial topics. However, by home schooling, the parents unwittingly enforce social learning issues on their children because they will never feel comfortable in situations that deal with other people their own age. This proves the children need the social aspect of school just as much as the educational aspect.

    Read More

  • The Life of Slaves in 1850

    940 Words  | 2 Pages

    If he got north he still wasn’t fully free because there were plenty of people in the north willing to take the reward and return him back to his master. When the fugitive slave act of 1793 was put into place it made it harder because if the slave was found, even in the north, he could be taken back to the south by his master. This meant that the best hope for the slave was to go all the way to Canada. Chances were very slim, but if he was able to make it, he was free!

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Faulkner's Philosophy Of Time

    1956 Words  | 4 Pages

    Bergson’s philosophy apparently influenced Faulkner’s notion of time, an admission he has made in an interview with Loic Bouvard. He remarked, “In fact I agree pretty much with Bergson’s theory of the fluidity of time” (Lion in the Garden 70). In the Bergsonian scheme, man experience time as period, a continuous stream, according to which, past, present, and future are not rigid and clear-cut points of difference in time, but they flow in one’s consciousness, persistently impacting one another. From this angle, the past is not strictly past; on the other hand, it is conserved in the present as a living force that influences the way in which one undergoes the present. Furthermore, in different interviews, Faulkner explained that his outlook of time was linked to his aesthetic view:

    Read More

  • Escape from Spiderhead by Dr. Abnesti

    1336 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kass, Leon, and James Q. Wilson, eds. The ethics of human cloning. American Enterprise Institute, 1998.

    Read More

  • Problems with Ethiopia’s Unofficial Cyber Espionage

    1048 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ia, 2014) Arrested and tortured journalists or bloggers in Ethiopia are not new; these nine represent only a fraction. More than eight convicted journalists have up to life sentences, since 2012.

    Read More

  • Narrator’s Use of Language and Memory in Faulkner’s The Unvanquished

    614 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the Unvanquished, a version of southern masculinity is developed through the narrator using dialect and the device, or should I say vice of memory. Fairly early in the novel, the reflective standpoint of the narrator becomes obvious, and a certain sense of “retelling” the story, not just telling it as it happened, prevails. This use of memory is not necessarily selective but it does show the processing of perceptions of the narrator’s childhood. As readers, we first get the sense that we are hearing the story from a much older Bayard when he drops comments like “I was just twelve then; I didn’t know triumph; I didn’t even know the word” (Unvanquished 5). If he was just twelve then, he could be just fifteen or sixteen when retelling this story, assuming the grandiosity that adolescence creates, leading to such thoughts as “I was just a kid then.” However, the second part of the statement reveals a much older and wiser voice, the voice of someone who has had time to think out such abstractions as triumph and failure. Furthermore, the almost obsessive description of the father in the first part of the novel seems like the narrator comes to terms, much later in life, with how he viewed his father as a man. “He was not big” (9) is repeated twice on the same page. He was short enough to have his sabre scrape the steps while ascending (10), yet he appeared large and in command, especially when on his horse (13). The shape and size of a man being an important part in defining masculinity, I think Baynard grappled with his father’s physical presence as well as his tenuous position as a leader in the Confederate Army. Other telling moments are on page 66 when Baynard postulates what a child can accept as true in such incredible situations and on page 95 with his declarations on the universality of war. (Possibly he is an old man now and has lived to see other wars.) Upon realizing the distance between the setting of the story and age of its narrator, the reader is forced to consider how memory and life itself have affected the storytelling.

    Read More

  • The Truth About Fast Food

    856 Words  | 2 Pages

    "Clinical Digest. Child Obesity Linked To Number Of Fast Food Outlets Near Schools." Nursing Standard 26.46 (2012): 16. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.

    Read More

  • Cell Phone Use in Teens

    1006 Words  | 3 Pages

    “ They (cell phones) allow people to stay connected to friends and family, for example, and provide a way to report crimes and emergencies…” ( How Does Cell Phone Use Impact Teenagers 9).

    Read More

  • Faith in Faulkner's Light In August

    1642 Words  | 4 Pages

    Religion is a big part of the southern world that Faulkner creates in Light In August. It is also a major theme of the novel. Most characters seem to use “Lord” and “God” very often in their dialogue, which shows that religion is never forgotten by the members of this society. Light in August portrays a type of religious fundamentalism. In this fundamentalism, among the people of the south, there is only one proper way of following and implementing religion in one’s life. Characters are constantly trying to justify killing, hatred, and racism through their faith. The creation of hatred and racism is the result of each character’s belief that theirs are the only genuine beliefs and therefore, it is their responsibility to carry out the work of God in their own personal way and through their own reasoning.

    Read More

More about Disjointed Characters of Faulkner's Light in August

Open Document