Light in August
by William Faulkner
Original Title: Light in August
Author: William Faulkner
Publication Date: 1932
Genres: Fiction, Southern gothic
File Version: 1.0
A landmark in American fiction, Light in August explores Faulkner's central theme: the nature of evil. The novel focuses on two misfits who arrive in Jefferson, Mississippi—Lena Grove, a young pregnant white woman from Alabama looking for the father of her unborn baby and Joe Christmas, a man who passes as white but has some black ancestry.
The novel explores Faulkner's central theme: the nature of evil. Joe Christmas-a man doomed, deracinated and alone-wanders the Deep South in search of an identity, and a place in society. After killing his perverted God-fearing lover, it becomes inevitable that he is pursued by a lynch-hungry mob. Yet after the sacrifice, there is new life, a determined ray of light in Faulkner's complex and tragic world.
In a loose, unstructured modernist narrative style that draws from Christian allegory and oral storytelling, Faulkner explores themes of race, sex, class and religion in the American South. By focusing on characters that are misfits, outcasts, or are otherwise marginalized in their community, he portrays the clash of alienated individuals against a Puritanical, prejudiced rural society.
Light in August brings to life Faulkner’s imaginary South, one of literature’s great invented landscapes, in all of its unerringly fascinating glory.