Light in August (Identities and Issues in Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: William Faulkner
- First Published: 1932
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: Racism, Race, Murder or homicide, South or Southerners, Interracial relationships, Mistaken or secret identity, Betrayal, Prejudices or antipathies, 1930’s, Pregnancy, Mississippi, Small-town life, Cruelty, Hate crimes, Outlaws
- Locales: Yoknapatawpha County (fictive)
The Work
Light in August, one of William Faulkner’s great novels, centers on Joe Christmas, whom the critic Alfred Kazin called “the most solitary character in American fiction.” His father, a swarthy man who may have been Mexican or black, is murdered by Christmas’ fanatical white grandfather, Doc Hines, who abandons the baby at an orphanage. Christmas grows to manhood in Mississippi, where race necessarily defines who he is. Unsure of his racial identity and divided within himself, Christmas discovers that he belongs neither to the white world nor the black....
[The entire page is 834 words long]
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