Light in August | Literary Precedents
As a victim of Southern racial, religious, and social mores, Joe Christmas cries out for social reform in a way that does not appear in Faulkner's earlier novels, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Sanctuary. In many interviews with students and teachers, Faulkner has described reading the work of Charles Dickens every year, and though many of the narrative and symbolic features of Light in August seem closer to another Faulkner favorite, Joseph Conrad, Dickens's great social novels, such as Bleak House, might have served as models for Light in...
[The entire page is 356 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
Tell a friend about Light in August at eNotes.
