Light in August and Social Change

8/2/2019 Light in August and Social Change

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Focusing on the Margins:

Light in Augustand

Social Change

byAbdul-Razzak Al-Barhow

In Wam Faukners Light in August(), a number o g-ures actvey engaged n soca change are ntroduced as Joanna Burdennarrates to her over Joe Chrstmas the hstory o her ancestors, and as thederocked mnster Ga Hghtower reects, whe sttng n the wndowo hs study, on the hstory o hs amy, whch was narrated to hm bythe amys e-save when he was a chd. Hghtowers ather was an abo-tonst even though he woud nether eat ood grown and cooked by,nor seep n a bed prepared by, a negro save (, ). Joannas ancestorsreceved a commsson rom the government n Washngton to go downto the South to hep wth the reed negroes, and two o them were shot

dead by the savehoder John Sartors over a queston o Negro votes n astate eecton (). Joanna, the ast Burden n the South, carres on wthths commsson unt she s ked by Joe Chrstmas.1

The appea o the engagement wth soca change n Faukners tetdoes not e n these characters, however, and the way the Burdens per-orm ther commsson remans, ater a, questonabe. Instead, the orceoLight in Augustderves rom ts abty to dramatze the soca andraca contradctons, whch are set n moton by Joe Chrstmass nde-

termnate raca orgns. The need or, not the nevtabty o, socachange n raca reatons s made even more pressng through Faukners


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Light in Augustand Social Change 53

demonstraton o how the raca deoogy that hods ths socety togethers the same deoogy that w tear t apart. The determnaton o the

whte communty n Jeerson to guard the bnares o ther deoogy and

mantan the ty o ts categores, we come to know, s no other thants unwngness to admt the vunerabty o the very bass o ts deo-ogy and the maeabe nature o ts categores, as the ncdent o Joannasdeath has reveaed to them.

Anthropoogst Mary Dougas, who nterprets rtuas reatng to thehuman body by regardng the body as a symbo o socety, observes thata margns are dangerous. . . . Any structure o deas s vunerabe atts margns (Purity, ). Dougass observaton s hepu n under-standng the wayLight in Augustdramatzes the process o soca changeby demonstratng the vunerabty o the southern structure o deasat ts margns. Faukners tet chooses ts man characters rom the mar-gns o the whte communty n Jeerson and makes the way these mar-gna characters engage wth ther communtys structure o deas thesubject o the communtys verba echange. As John N. Duva notes,margna members o the whte communty n Faukners tets unc-ton to counter racst and patrarcha proscrptveness (Faulknersv).

As t dramatzes soca reatons n the orm o tak, or verba echangeo meanngs and vaues, Light in Augusteamnes soca change on a n-gustc eve as a sht n the semantc weght o categores and bnarestoward a perormatve vew o race, n contrast to the boogca conceptthat the communtys voces are desperatey tryng to mantan. Socachange s eamned urther n the overa structure o the book n the waythe three stores o Lena Grove, Joe Chrstmas, and Ga Hghtower are

jutaposed. Chrstmass voent story s ramed by the more optmstcstores o Hghtower and Lena, whch not ony dramatse eampes o thepossbty o breakng ree rom the etters o socety, be t n the orm oracst and patrarcha deoogy, nsttutona regon, or the ghost o thepast n the orm o dead ather gures, but aso o contrbutng postveyto soca change and ookng orward to a new soca order based on oveand acknowedgment o human needs and emotons. In contrast to thevoent deaths o Joanna and Chrstmas, postve change n the stores o

Hghtower and Lena s suggested by both the brth o Lenas baby and therebrth that both Byron Bunch and Hghtower eperence as Bunch as h L d H h d d h b b


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54 Southern Literary Journal

grandather, Joannas assumed murder by Joe Chrstmas untes PercyGrmms army to preserve order and et the aw take ts course.Ths unty resuts, accordng to Grmm, rom the act that []t s the

rght o no cvan to sentence a man to death (). Ths campagnends wth Grmm hmse kng and castratng Joe Chrstmas or k-ng Joanna, not as the Yankee whom they used to shout ngger overater n the streets, but as a whte woman, who has been ked and verykey raped by a back man. Joannas soca status s changed to pro-tect a basc tenet o the southern racst deoogy, whch s the unnatura-ness o the reatonshp between whte women and back men. Becausesuch reatonshps between whte women and back men are percevedby the whte communty to be unnatura, they can be conceved o astakng pace n one way ony: rape. Even though the communty mem-bers are not sure that Joanna has been raped, they rush to estabsh therape as act, and ndeed they woud be very dsapponted they were tobe proven wrong: they knew, beeved and hoped that she has been rav-shed too: at east once beore her throat was cut and at east once ater-

ward (). Joanna becomes suddeny ntegrated nto the whte com-munty because combnng her assumed murder wth rape woud notony aow the communty members to read the ncdent accordng tother concepton o the reatonshp between whte women and backmen, and consequenty assure themseves about the soundness o therbees, but aso woud provde them wth a justcaton or ther use ovoence aganst back men.

Even though the communty seems to be qute obvous to thschange n Joannas soca status, whch mght be aso epaned by ts

engagement wth the chaenge that Joe Chrstmas has presented n rea-ton to the word ngger, the dramatc change n Joannas status roma ngger over to a voated whte woman demonstrates that the catego-res o the communty are not stabe. The etent o ths change mght beapprecated better we take nto consderaton that throughout her e,

Joanna was margnazed by the communty because o her assocatonwth back peope and because o her amys abotonst hstory. Earyn the nove, the omnscent narrator presents the communtys opnon

o Joanna: A Yankee, a over o negroes, about whom n the town theres st tak o queer reatons wth negroes n the town and out o t( ) Th J d h


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nteracton between whte and back peope and the earu possbty omscegenaton between the two races are guarded aganst by usng stg-matzng epressons ke a over o negroes. Suspected seua reaton-

shps between whte and back peope are made to ook unnatura bydescrbng them as queer and by reerrng to contact wth back peopen terms o mng up, whch has obvous connotatons o crmnaty.In hs epanaton o deoogca strateges, Terry Eageton ponts out thathegemonc groups try to make ther deooges ook natura:

Successu deooges are oten thought to render ther bees nat-ura and se-evdent to denty them wth the common sense

o a socety so that nobody coud magne how they mght ever bederent. . . . ths process . . . nvoves the deoogy n creatng astght a t as possbe between tse and soca reaty, thereby cos-ng the gap nto whch the everage o crtque coud be nserted.Soca reaty s redened by the deoogy to become coetensve

wth tse, n a way whch occudes the truth that the reaty n actgenerated the deoogy. () 3

Indeed, the whte communty n Jeerson s dong the same thng:transerrng the codes o ther domnance nto acts. Ths strategy s asoused wth Ga Hghtower, who, ke Joanna Burden, becomes ostraczedrom the communty because o the scanda that s created by hs wesdeath n a Memphs hote, whch s bamed on Hghtowers assumed rea-tonshp to hs back emae cook. Byron Bunch, who pays an mpor-tant roe n conveyng the news o the town and ts ways o thnkng toHghtower and to us as readers, s tod about how he [Hghtower] had

made hs we go bad and commt sucde because he was not a naturahusband, a natura man, and that the negro woman was the reason ().Naturazng the deoogy o the domnant group heps n bockng socachange or t creates, as Eageton epans, a vcous crce n the rea-tonshp o the deoogy o the domnant group to soca reaty: the de-oogy coud ony be transormed the reaty was such as to aow t tobecome objected; but the deoogy processes the reaty n ways whchoresta ths possbty (). Eageton cares ths urther: Ideoogy

reezes hstory nto a second nature, presentng t as spontaneous, nev-tabe and so unaterabe (). On the surace, the communty n Jeer- h h d h h


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the tet that do not account or the change that s takng pace beowthe surace. Though ths strategy s to some etent eectve n bockngsubstanta soca change or a tme, t must not suggest that the commu-

ntys bnares and categores were, even durng ths perod, stabe. Socachange does not need to be drastc to the etent o repacng one hege-monc group wth another.

As Light in Augustrees heavy on voces and tak, change comes atthe eve o anguage. Mary Dougas epans that the eeng that we arebeng controed by an eterna, ed envronment o deas s an u-son, and adds that we can rease how much a anguage changes na etme, wthout the speakers recognzng ther own contrbuton, wecan rease how rtuas and bees change. They are etremey pastc.Dougas epans the changng nature o rtuas by ther beng energet-cay manpuated by peope who evade ther mpcatons n ther ownves they can, but use them or httng each other and orcng oneanother to conorm to somethng they have n mnd (Couvade ).Both Rchard Godden and Rchard Gray emphasze the roe o verbaechange o deas n the process o change and draw on Fredrc Jamesonsemphass on the prveged meetng paces o coectve e n actat-ng ths echange n Faukners county (Godden , Gray , Jameson). Light in Augustand The Hamlet(), probaby more than Fauknersother noves, ocus on the roe o pubc spaces where verba echangetakes pace. Lke Varners store n Frenchmans Bend, Light in Augusto-ows the communtys tak n the square, the porch o Mrs Beards board-ng house, countrysde churchyards, and so on.

Lke the deveopment o Joannas soca status, the deveopment o

the centra term ngger s another eampe o change wthn ths seem-ngy stabe communty. When the communty s tod that Chrstmashas back bood, ther verba echange ocuses on Chrstmass behav-our beore and ater the murder to tay t wth the behavoura pat-tern whch they assocate wth the word ngger, and whch they beeves determned by back bood. In ths way, Chrstmass chaenge to thehegemonc group etends beyond hs crme, whch nvoves kng andrapng a whte woman, whch Dane Roberts descrbes as perhaps the

most proound psychc assaut on the southern sense o ntegrty ().4

Chrstmas becomes, as Godden descrbes hm, a pressure pont whob h h d b h


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murder because t undermnes the ty o the communtys categoreso whteness and backness. I whteness can be acted, then the whte/back bnary becomes vunerabe because t becomes determned by per-

ormance rather than boogy, whch they have so ar reed on to natu-raze the rest o ther practces. Joe Wamson notes that southernerscame to ear hdden backness, the backness wthn seemng whtenessand began to ook wth great suspcon upon muattoes who ooked

whte, whte peope who behaved as back, and a whoe congeres o aensn ther mdst ( ). Though the man response o the domnantgroup, ear was not the ony response to hdden mscegenaton. James A.Snead epans that etreme raca dvson ects the desre or mngor mscegenaton, whch he regards as the Souths eared, orbdden,dened, yet pervasve reease rom soceta dvson (Light ). Thatthe communty members mght respond n conctng ways to mscege-naton subverts the ty o raca boundares. Furthermore, t demandsthat the whte communty reman on constant watch, not ony or ntrud-ers rom outsde but aso or trators rom wthn.

Even though Chrstmas succeeds n dramatzng the nappropratenesso the boogca denton o the term ngger, and provdes a compe-ng evdence o the vadty o ts perormatve nature, the communtydoes not gve n easy. Rather than accept the semantc sht o ther cat-egores, they are outraged by the dscrepancy between ther categoresand soca reaty. The communtys voce, whch s personazed as tak,epresses ths outrage:

Then yesterday mornng he come nto Mottstown n broad day-ght, on a Saturday wth the town u o oks. He went nto a

whte barbershop ke a whte man, and because he ooked ke awhte man they never suspected hm. Even when the bootback sawhow he had on a par o second hand brogans that were too bg orhm, they never suspected. . . . And then he waked the streets nbroad dayght, ke he owned the town, wakng back and orth

wth peope passng hm a dozen tmes and not knowng t . . . . Henever acted ke ether a ngger or a whte man. That was t. That

was what made the oks so mad. ()

Accordng to the epectatons o the communty members the cerks,h d h Ch h


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behavor, whch suggests that there s a dvergence between ts deoogyand soca reaty, whch, n turn, suggests that ts deoogy was not gener-ated by soca reaty, whch, utmatey, deegtmzes that deoogy n the

way t becomes no onger natura, but rather desgned by the hegem-onc group to serve ts own nterests. In contrast to the voce o the com-mon peope, who do not hde ther own conuson, Gavn Stevens, theDstrct Attorney and one o the man speakers o the domnant deo-ogy, seems more assured about hs own epanaton o Chrstmass behav-or.5 Stevens, who s echoed by McCasn Edmonds when he taks aboutthe nteracton o back and Indan bood n Sam Fathers n Go Down,

Moses, nds n the myth o the tragc muatto a sutabe epanaton orthe behavour o Chrstmas. Accordng to Stevenss derent theory, ts the whte bood that gudes Chrstmas to do ratona thngs and mot-vates hm to save hmse n contrast to hs back bood, whch swepthm by hs own desre beyond the ad o any man, swept hm up ntothat ecstasy out o a back junge where e has aready ceased beore theheart stops and death s desre and ument ( ). Ths reerenceto the death desre n reaton to Chrstmass back bood s an attemptto epan why Chrstmas dd not try to shoot Percy Grmm wth theoaded psto, whch he was hodng n hs hand when Grmm shot hm.Here, Stevens echoes the myth that Arcan Amercans not ony ack the

wngness to resst voence, but aso desre death, a convenent nterpre-taton o the dena o backs the rght to deend themseves aganst vo-ence durng savery.6 We know that athough Chrstmas, as a chd, wastraned by hs oster ather to accept voence, he ressted Mr. McEach-ern when he became abe to do so, and when he eaves hm or good, he

does so beevng that he has ked hm. Furthermore, Chrstmas tres tosave hmse by runnng and he does not shoot because t becomes obv-ous that he w be ked anyway. Despte Stevenss attempt to restore thevcous crce between soca reaty and the deoogy o hs communty,

whch he tres to present as natura n the sense that t rests on boogy,the deoogy becomes demysted to a great etent, whch s an essentapart o the process o soca change.7

Snce we as readers know more about Chrstmass e and hs rea-

tonshp to Joanna than the communty does, t w be useu to eam-ne Chrstmass testng o the bnares o whteness and backness andh h J h


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the need or soca change, whch the destructve eects o the racst de-oogy make even more pressng.

Moreover, the books compe treatment o raca dentty suggests

that the communtys conuson regardng Chrstmass raca dentty andhs conusng behavour s an etenson o Chrstmass waverng between

whte and back denttes, whch mght, at a superca eve, demon-strate the vadty o Stevenss bood theory. Chrstmass waverng, how-ever, s not drven by any certan normaton about hs parentage, ratherby nstng the racst deoogy o the hegemonc communty nto hmas a whte boy and then eposng hm to the cam that he s a nggerthrough tak. Chrstmas s not back n coor, and the book does notprovde any rm evdence that he has back bood. Hs mother s whteand hs athers backness s estabshed, as hs grandmother epans toHghtower n the presence o her husband and Byron Bunch, by rey-ng on a cam made by one man ony: because t was just that crcusman that sad he was a ngger and maybe he never knew or certan,and besdes he was gone too and we key woudnt ever see hm agan(). The equa cam made by Chrstmass mother, Me Hnes, thatChrstmass ather s a Mecan s not gven any credbty. Indeed, t smportant to add, that Chrstmass grandather, Doc Hnes, does not

wat to hear the crcus man to estabsh the backness o Chrstmassather. When he epans to Hghtower and Bunch, he bases hs camon hs anatc convcton that he coud recognze ev, whch he obvousydented wth dark compeon. Speakng n the thrd person to buttressthe objectvty o hs judgment, he says that hs daughter was Tengod Doc Hnes, that knowed better, that he was a Mecan. When od

Doc Hnes coud see n hs ace the back curse o God Amghty ().Unortunatey, Hness convcton s transmtted to Chrstmas as Hnessmanpuaton o the chdren n the orphanage to make them ca Chrst-mas ngger acqures strength when Chrstmas s caed You tte ng-ger bastard! () by the detcan. Nether Chrstmass e n the orphan-age nor hs onger stay at hs oster amy seems to wear out ths deepyentrenched mpresson n hs memory.

The detas o Chrstmass reatonshp to Joanna demysty some

o the communtys basc assumptons about the reatonshp o whtewomen to Arcan Amercan men. Even though Chrstmas and Joanna b h h d


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whch subverts the myth o whte womens purty (Kng ). ThadousDavs comments that n presentng Chrstmas, the man who may haveNegro bood, as approachng the aar wth some degree o ratonaty

and wthout beng competey caught n the throes o physca peasure,Faukner operates aganst one set o bees regardng backs and seua-ty partcuary bees about back men and whte women (). Iron-cay t s Joanna who repeats the word Negro n her seua encoun-ters wth Joe, showng that t s she who has an ecessve, uncontroabeseuaty.8 Even though the dramatzaton o ths reatonshp subvertssome o the myths that are crcuated n the communty, ths does notcontrbute to any subverson as ar as the communty s concerned, ort never comes to know about t, just as t never comes to know whetheror not Joanna was raped by Chrstmas. Ths uncertanty paces readersat a vantage pont rom whch we perceve and crtque the communtysresponse to the chaenge t aces.

Chrstmass behavour dspays a great dea o atasm, and hs otenquoted sentence: Something is going to happen to me suggests hs surren-der to that atasm (). Yet Chrstmas demonstrates at cruca momentsn hs e that he can act postvey; hs reusa o Joannas suggeston thathe attend a back coege and adopt the raca dentty o a back man as

we as hs reusa to pray when she tres to coerce hm to do so ndcatehs sense o agency. Why Chrstmas reuses Joannas proposa mght beepaned n derent ways. Chrstmas thnks that to accept Joannasproposa woud deny a the thrty years that he has ved to make hm

what he chose to be (). Davs regards Chrstmass reusa as a pro-gressve mpuse, but one doomed to aure because t cuts so sharpy

aganst the gran o tradtona southern e and thought (). Indeed,ths reusa o a ready-made dentty mght be regarded as Chrstmassgreatest achevement: vng as a human beng rather than a rgd socaconstructon. And even though there s the possbty that Chrstmasdoes not accept the dentty o a back man because o hs ear o abjec-ton, whch he assocates wth back peope because o the racst deoogythat he was brought up wth, hs reusa to pray s a rejecton o anat-csm, whch s used by severa characters n the book to justy racsm

and voence. Joannas nsstence on sodyng Chrstmass dentty as aback man and her determnaton to orce hm to compy wth her anat- d h d h b h d d h d


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embark on contrbutng to soca change ater they gve up prayer andunderstand regon n a new way: that peace n whch to sn and be or-gven . . . s the e o man ().

As urther detas o Joannas death are reveaed to whtes n the com-munty, they reaze that Chrstmass chaenge to them was by no meansmted to hs assumed murder and rape o Joanna Burden, but asoncuded the seducton o a whte man. Hs reatonshp to Joe Brown,

whch undermnes segregaton and whte bnarsm, s more chaengngthan that wth Joanna Burden, though the communty does not seem todwe very much on t n comparson to the murder o Joanna and theburnng o her house. Seducng Brown s supposed to be more dfcutthan seducng Joanna because unke Joanna, who s an outsder, Browns reated (though tenuousy) to the communty. It s true that he s a or-egner n Jeerson, but he s a southerner and he subscrbes to the sameracst deoogy. However, Brown, as a poor whte, ves at the margn osocety, where the structure o southern deas s vunerabe. I the tyo the communtys bnares s deended at the center o the communtyby condent epanatons, ke Gavn Stevenss derent theory, thenchange s seepng at the margns where the ndvduas who ve there arecompeed by ther economc condtons, and sometmes they are wngto compromse these bnares t s to ther benet. Eamnng Brownseampe, we nd that t s dctated ntay by hs economc condtons,but ater he becomes seduced by the knd o e he eads wth Chrstmas,

whch ncudes trps to brothes n Memphs and easy money rom sengwhskey, whch aows hm to gve up hs job at the sawm and rde aday n a new car. John Duva observes that n Faukners case, there are

n-between characters Caucasans who nstantate backness n waysthat compcate the Southern bnarsm. He goes on to dstngush twocasses o such peope: ) those characters who ehbt seua and or gen-der ambguty and ) poor whtes (Strange ). Brown undermneshs whteness n the eyes o the communty on both grounds.

We are not sure that there s a homoseua reatonshp betweenBrown and Chrstmas; there are, however, strong suggestons n the roesthey pay n ther reatonshp. It s obvous that Chrstmas domnates

Brown, and Brown actuay admts that to the sher, deendng hm-se that any man n hs poston woud have done as he dd: way outh h b h h d b d h


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edge that he ved wth Chrstmas, but he dd so to deend hmse whenthe suspcons aganst hm n the murder o Joanna became qute strong:he had knowed that t come to a pnch, ths woud save hm, even t

was amost worse or a whte man to admt what he woud have to admtthan to be accused o the murder tse (). Moreover, Chrstmas beatsBrown n a manner smar to hs attempts to domnate Joanna seu-ay, and he dscoses the secret o what he beeves are hs raca orgnsto Brown n the cabn just as he dd wth many prosttutes n ntmatestuatons n bedrooms. When Brown accuses the town o beng ooedor three years by Chrstmas, who was vng wth a whte woman dur-ng ths perod, the bame s drected back aganst Brown or ang nhs roe to protect a whte woman, whch undermnes both hs whtenessand hs mascunty.

Why Brown decdes to contnue wth hs partnershp wth Chrstmasater he s tod by Chrstmas that he s party back mght be epanedby Browns awareness that hs whteness has aready been compromsedby hs economc poston and by the knd o job he has to do at the saw-m. When he epans to the sher why he dd not know at what tmehe saw the re n Joannas house, he says: Do you epect a man dongthe work o a ngger save at a sawm to be rch enough to own a watch?(). Browns artca backness s ar rom beng an ndvdua case;rather, t s a symptom o a substanta soca transormaton durng theGreat Mgraton, when a cass o poor whtes repaced Arcan Amer-cans desertng the South atogether or movng rom the countrysde tourban centers wthn the South.9 Barbara Ladd, who mantans that theSpansh-Amercan War and Word War I changed the reatonshp o

race and cass n the South, epans that the economc consequenceso ths mgraton durng the war years were mmedate: [t]he era actu-aydidwtness a breakdown n economc segregaton ( ). Duvaobserves that the mgraton urther burred the boundary between ng-ger and whte trash. In terms o Southern epstemoogy, he wrtes,there became a need or someone to stand n or the rura Negro who

was mgratng to urban areas or out o the South entrey. Ths need sdoubed n the ream o economcs (Strange ).

As Brown undermnes whte mascunty and the bnares o the com-munty, he s regarded as a suspect rather than as a wtness, and that sh h d h h h h d


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Lena and takng care o ther baby. When Brown reuses ths oer, whchhe s presented wth as he s drven by a poceman to the cabn n whchLena and her baby ve, and escapes, he shows that soca change s more

possbe than ever because there are whtes who beeve that the vaues othe whte communty are meant to serve the domnant rch. Though hsdecson nvoves negectng Lena and her baby, Browns contrbuton tosoca change s mportant because t ndcates that there are more whtesready to compromse raca bnares. Hs hysterca et rom the town smotvated by hs strong convcton that he was dened justce. Justce,he says aoud. That was a. Just my rghts. And them bastards wth thertte tn stars, a sworn everyone o them on oath, to protect a Amercanctzen. The way he contempates jonng the communsts I be a dog t ant enough to make a man turn downrght bowsheyvck neednot be taken serousy, but t ndcates a rea break wth the whte com-munty ().

Because Light in Augustconssts o three seemngy separate narratves,some crtcs have ponted out that the book acks structura cohesveness.Irvng Howe, or eampe, observes that Light in Augustsuers rom acertan structura ncoherence (). The three narratves, however, arereated to each other n derent ways, and the topc o soca change s amajor nkng theme. Lke Brown and Chrstmas, Ga Hghtower, ByronBunch and Lena Grove contrbute to the vunerabty o whte south-ern deoogy by actvey engagng wth soca change. Chrstmass cen-tra story, n whch the possbty o change s met wth erce resstance,s jutaposed wth the stores o Hghtower and Lena, whch eamneeampes o redeemng change. Doreen Fower observes that the stores

o Lena Grove and Hghtower appear to orm concentrc crces aroundthe horrc center, the murder o Joanna Burden, as the dark narratveat the noves core needed somehow to be contaned (). Hghtowersand Lenas stores are strongy nked to Chrstmass, actng as a commenton the deveopment o Chrstmass presence n Jeerson and the deatho Joanna, whch oten takes the orm o Bunch dscussng wth Hgh-tower the towns response to Chrstmass act aong wth Bunchs grow-ng nterest n Lena. Bunch nks the three stores urther as he brngs

Chrstmass grandparents to Hghtowers house and ater on to the cabn,behnd Joanna Burdens burned house, where Hghtower devers Lenasb b h


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on what s gong on n the town. The rst tme Bunch taks to Lena aboutJoannas burnng house, however, he reterates the towns racst vew oJoanna n a way whch suggests that he partakes o that vew. They say,

he tes Lena, she s st med up wth nggers. Vsts them when theyare sck, ke they was whte. Wont have a cook because t woud have tobe a ngger cook. Foks say she cams that nggers are the same as whteoks (). When Hghtower s tod that Chrstmas has back bood,

whch strongy suggests that he w be ynched, Hghtower responds d-erenty rom the rest o the communty. Hs comment, Thnk, Byron;

what t w mean when the peope they catch . . . Poor man. Poormanknd (), suggests hs dsapprova o ynchng and, more mpor-tanty, hs nabty to do anythng to change ths seemng unaterabeate. Hghtowers nvovement n Chrstmass story remans mted even

when Bunch has become deepy nvoved n Chrstmass story to theetent that he persuades Hghtower, when he brngs Chrstmass grand-parents to hs house, to provde an ab or Chrstmas. Bunch persuadesHghtower to do so even at the epense o hs reputaton, whch wasaready damaged by the scanda that surrounded the death o hs we.Bunchs dea o an ab conssts o Hghtowers cam that Chrstmasused to come to hs pace every nght, ncudng the nght o Joannasmurder, whch comes very cose to admttng a homoseua reatonshp

wth Chrstmas. When Hghtower acts accordng to Bunchs suggeston,whch comes very ate when Chrstmas comes nto hs house as a reugee,hs engagement wth Chrstmass story, and wth soca change, deepens.It s sgncant that Hghtowers and Bunchs responses have become d-erent rom that o ther communty, especay gven the act that Hght-

ower, n hs prevous roe as a regous eader, and Bunch, as a eader o achor n a countrysde church, were nstruments o nsttutona regon,whch s strongy nked wth racsm n Chrstmass story. The varouscharacters who wrte Chrstmas nto estence justy ther voence andracsm by ther regous bee.10

Mchae Lackey mantans that Grmm, Burden, Hnes, and McEach-ern are the most dangerousy deoogca characters n the nove precseybecause they convnce themseves that they are non-deoogca ().11

Lke them, Hghtower used to be an nstrument o death and oppres-son when he was part o the regous nsttuton, whch bnded hmh 12 Th H h dd h d h


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the outsde and see t or what t s. The transormaton o Hghtowerspersonaty takes a very ong tme because hs movement rom the centero hs socety to the margn s not accompaned by a sht n perspectve.

Ater hs ostracsm, Hghtower spends a ong tme thnkng o hmse nhs od roe, o whch he s remnded every nght by the sound o churchbes. Even though ths perod s characterzed by Hghtowers nactvtyand appears statc, t s durng ths perod that Hghtowers tes wth theregous nsttuton and ts deoogy become graduay weaker. Break-ng wth ths deoogy and the resutng change n Hghtowers characterare reveaed when he succeeds n deverng Lenas baby. Ths change sepressed n physca and menta terms: Hghtower ees actve and ener-getc, whch ntay suggests a return to hs od ascnaton wth hero-sm and voence; he chooses to read Henry IVnstead o Tennyson. Pon-derng hs reatonshp to hs we, he admts to hmse that he was annstrument o her despar and shame. He concudes that he behaved ashe dd because he was an nstrument o someone outsde hmse, mus-ng, I know that or ty years I have not even been cay: I have been asnge nstant o darkness n whch a horse gaoped and a gun crashed.Hghtower does not ve as a rea human beng because he ves n thetaes that the amys e-save has tod hm about hs grandathers her-osm. He s born anew as he ceases to be hs dead grandather on thenstant o hs death ().

As Hghtower reects on hs e urther, he nds n regon andthe church system another destructve actor. Accordng to hs newyacqured vson, the regous nsttuton appears to be the antthess o

what t s meant to be. He seems to see the churches o the word ke a

rampart, ke one o those barrcades o the mddeages panted wth deadand sharpened stakes, aganst truth and aganst . . . peace (). I wecompare the deveopment o Hghtowers deas and vaues to the deveop-ment o the deoogy o hs communty, we nd that Hghtowers deve-opment takes pace, at east n the na stage, conscousy. The ntensempact o the transormaton o Hghtowers bees s suggested n a par-ae physca transormaton, whch unburdens hm rom the weghts

whch used to constran hm. Then t seems to hm that some utmate

damned ood wthn hm breaks and rushes away. He seems to watch t,eeng hmse osng contact wth earth, ghter and ghter, emptyng, Th h h h b d d h


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gves up hs od pace n the wndow o hs study and engages wth soc-ety. In hs new roe, Hghtower becomes a orce o e as he succeeds ndeverng Lenas baby, an act whch he attempted beore n hs roe as an

nstrument o death wth a pregnant back woman and whch resutedn a stborn baby. Now Hghtower beeves that socety can be changedand that Chrstmass ate s no onger unaterabe; t s ths bee thatpropes Hghtower to provde Chrstmas wth an ab at the epense oHghtowers own reputaton.

In parae to Hghtowers persona transormaton, hs mage n thetowns coectve conscousness begns to change as we. Ths change ssuggested n the new way hs sgn, whch he nstas n the street aterthe death o hs we and the oss o hs job at the church, mght be read.Ths sgn contans hs tte DD, whch s read rst negatvey ke HesterPrynnes scaretA. When Bunch rst comes to Jeerson and asks aboutthe meanng o DD, he s tod t stands or Done Damned. As Hestermanages to transorm the meanng o herA rom Adutery to Ange or

Abe, Hghtowers transormaton rom an nstrument o death nto annstrument o e, transorms the meanng o hs sgn. When the doctor,

who s brought by Bunch to hep Lena n abour, comes ate and ndsthat Hghtower has done hs work or hm, he addresses hm as doctor,thus reversng Hghtowers tte to a postve meanng: that o a doctor,not n the theoogca sense as Hghtower ntay ntended t to mean,but n the medca sense o hepng young ves come nto estence anddeendng oder ones aganst death and dsease.

In the second story o the nove, the estye o Byron Bunch pror tomeetng Lena Grove s characterzed by a rgd se-dscpne and amost

a compete adherence to the vaues o hs socety despte the act thathe ves on the margns o ths socety. Bunch s aster to change thanHghtower; he s ess bnded by the deoogy o hs communty. Evenbeore meetng Lena, Bunchs secret vsts to Hghtowers house, whchhe understands the town woud punsh voenty, are an nstance o hs

wngness to act aganst the communtys approva. Bunch changes ashe meets and as n ove wth Lena and hs change begns n the ormo takng a ve-mnute break rom hs job at the sawm, whch eventu-

ay turns out to be not ony a break wth the m or good, but aso aberaton rom hs od e o ghtng. Lke Hghtower, Bunch gves uph H h k h d


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estye. From od habt he stens to the communtys voces nsde hmcrtcsng what he s dong wth the derence that he, as a transormedman now, does not need to bother about them.

He dd not care now, though a week ago t woud have been d-erent. Then he woud not have stood here, where any man coudook at hm and perhaps recognze hm: Byron Bunch, that weededanother mans laidby crop, without any halvers. The fellow that tookcare of another mans whore while the other fellow was busy making athousand dollars. ()

In hs new roe, Bunch s not ony ready to act aganst the deoogy o thehegemonc group, but aso to use ther racst epectatons to save Chrst-mas rom death. When Percy Grmm ecams Has every preacher andod mad n Jeerson taken ther pants down to the yeowbeed son oa btch? () n response to Hghtowers attempt to save Chrstmas byprovdng hm wth an ab, t becomes cear that Bunch has set hmseapart rom the whte communty, empoyng hs understandng o whatGodden cas the workngs o the coectve seua magnaton, to changesocety. Godden rghty epans Bunchs approach to soca change as angustc one: Hs sk, ke Joes (though o a derent order o nten-sty), depends upon a bee that what the voces say can be changed, or,to adapt hs own words, that pubc takng makes truth ony whe t ssuered to do so (). Language s not, however, the mt o Bunchsengagement wth soca change. As hs reatonshp to Hghtower andLena demonstrates, Bunchs soca engagement nvoves concerted acton,

whch changes hs mage n the coectve conscousness.

As the arrva o Lena Grove s made the occason o Hghtowers andBunchs regeneraton, t s useu to eamne the roe o Lena as a mar-gna gure n the dsrupton o racst deoogy. Lena does not engagedrecty wth raca reatons, but t s ony when she berates Bunchrom hs od way o e that he becomes abe to act aganst the njustceo hs socety and motvate hs rend to do so. And even though Lenamakes her way rom Aabama to Jeerson and out o t, apprecatngpeopes kndness, she s no ess o a rebe than Bunch. Fower notes that

Lena transgresses boundares, cmbng out o the wndow o her broth-ers house to orncate wth Lucas Burch. She s not a seamess urn butk d d b d b


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to the prevang one. Lena s not, however, the ony emae to jon themae gures n ther engagement wth soca change. Chrstmass grand-mother, Mrs. Hnes, who has been senced by her husband or thrty

years, takes over when she comes to know that her grandson s st aveand she mght do somethng to save hm. The way she and her husbandcome to Jeerson she to save Chrstmas and Mr. Hnes to take partn hs ynchng and the way they eave wth her n charge s one o thestrongest suggestons that Chrstmass death has dvded the whte com-munty, at east on the margns, and dd not do so n van.

I these are the attempts o the whte communty members at man-tanng or subvertng the bnares o ther deoogy, then there remansthe mportant queston about the roe o Arcan Amercan characters,

who are paced at the margns and beyond the margns o whte socety,n breakng out o ther prsons n segregated areas such as FreedmanTown, the back secton o Jeerson, and n brngng about soca change.Even though the book ocuses on the margns o ths socety, a pace thatshoud hghght the presence and the roe o Arcan Amercans, thesepeope est there but not as uy ndvduazed peope and ther roen soca change s even more dfcut to access. When Chrstmas ndshmse n Freedman Town n what mght be descrbed as a a nto theunderword, he responds to the peope who nhabt the pace as one mass,ang to see them as derent ndvduas:

beore he knew t he was n Freedman Town, surrounded by thesummer sme and the summer voces o nvsbe negroes. Theyseemed to encose hm ke bodess voces murmurng takngaughng n a anguage not hs. As rom the bottom o a thck back

pt he saw hmse encosed by cabnshapes, vague, kerosenet, sothat the street amps themseves seemed to be urther spaced, as the back e, the back breathng had compounded the substanceo breath so that not ony voces but movng bodes and ght tsemust become ud and accrete . . . . ( )

These bodess voces and the anguage that Chrstmas regards as or-egn, whch the resdents o Freedman Town use to communcate wth

one another, make t mpossbe to eamne soca change on a ngus-tc eve wthn ths Arcan Amercan communty. We are unabe tod h th ht t ht t k


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response to ths anguage, whch s dened a space n the tet, and t smportant to add that Chrstmass response to Freedman Town s shapedby hs upbrngng accordng to the vaues o hs oster amy.13

Chrstmass response to Freedman Town s not the ony tme heresponds to Arcan Amercans n ths way. It actuay echoes severa otheroccasons on whch he responds to Arcan Amercans, not as a mass, butas ndvduas whose ndvduaty and anguage he as to understand.In hs rst seua eperence, whch happens to be wth an Arcan Amer-can woman, Chrstmass response to the woman s descrbed, kewse, nterms o sme, and when she taks to hm, her anguage s regarded, notas oregn, but (rather worse) as no anguage. Chrstmas stands smengthe woman, smeng the negro a at once; encosed by the womanshene-gro and the haste, drven, havng to wat unt she spoke: a gudng soundthat was no partcuar word and competey unaware ().

I Faukners tet persstenty bocks our access to the compety othe Arcan Amercan communtes n Freedman Town and esewhereby oregroundng Chrstmass response to them as monothc groupsand bocks our knowedge o these peopes desre or soca change onthe ngustc eve, then t s mportant to eamne ther roe n brng-ng about soca change on other eves. Indeed, the more we try to den-ty the desre o Arcan Amercans or soca change and ther agencyn the process, the more we are remnded o our aure. Our rustratonat beng bocked rom eamnng ths roe makes us strongy aware o anunbrdgeabe gap n the tet. Ths very present absence makes t mpor-tant to ask: why does Faukner create such a gap n hs tet, and what sthe uncton o ths gap?

A comparson between Light in Augustand Go Down, Moses() sveryhepu here. In the atter tet, Faukner gves some o hs ArcanAmercan characters the chance, when they encounter ther whte rea-tves who do not uy acknowedge them as reatves, to demand recog-nton and equaty. For eampe, the unnamed muatta, who turnsout to be reated to Ike McCasn, epresses ths desre qute condenty

when she remnds Ike, who objects to her marrage to Roth Edmonds,about ove. Od man, she says, have you ved so ong and orgotten so

much that you do not remember anythng you ever knew or et or evenheard about ove? (Go ). So why does Faukner preer to present the A A h Li ht i A t? I


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drect on the topc o soca change. The aesthetc epresson oLight inAugusts engagement wth soca change es n, to use Rchard Grayswords, transormng hstorca conct nto the processes, the enacted

debates o cton (). Focusng on the unstabe margns o Jeerson,and presentng the roe o Arcan Amercans as an unbrdgeabe gap atthe heart o the tet, Faukner provdes n Light in Augustan even moreeoquent epresson o the southern need or soca change.

notes

. Even though Chrstmas contempates murderng Joanna beore he goesto her bedroom, the act that he ks her ater she has attempted to shoot hm

compcates hs act and makes t ess accurate to descrbe t as murder as tmght be regarded aso as se-deense. For more dscusson on ths queston seeFaulkners Marginal Couple(Duva ).

. Ayya Abdur-Rahman epans that rumor and nnuendo were essentato the project o mantanng segregaton ().

. Eageton epands that the concept o naturazaton rests upon the deathat nature s mmutabe: It s nterestng, ncdentay, that the concept onaturazaton tse rests upon a partcuar ideologyo Nature, whch takes t nthe manner o Wam Wordsworth to be massvey mmutabe and endurng;

and t s ronc that ths vew o Nature shoud preva n an hstorca epochwhere the stu s contnuay beng hacked nto human shape, technoogcaydomnated and transormed ().

. Chrstmas approaches Joanna wth the ntenton o rapng her n orderto subdue her and the seua encounter that ensues mght be descrbed asrape, but ths s not drecty reated to kng Joanna. Furthermore, the wayJoanna approaches her rape as a man or as a vctmzer rather than a vctmundermnes the descrpton o the seua encounter as rape.

. Gavn Stevens mght be regarded as a man speaker o the whte

communtys deoogy because he represents the ega nsttuton. Stevens otenpays ths roe, especay n the ast secton oGo Down, Mosesand n theSnopes trogy where he presents hmse, aong wth V. K. Rat and CharesMason, as a deender o Jeerson.

. Abdur-Rahman mantans that wthn the contet o the South whatdetermned whte manhood n the nneteenth century was not smpy whteskn but access to the vote, access to the bodes o women, the rght to deendones country n war, the rght to hod arms or property, the rght to acqurecapta, and, especay, the rght and abty to domnate back peope. What

determned backness was susceptbty to voence, a so-caed nabty to endo or contro prma urges, and an utmate negaton o the aorementoned


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(Frday ; Snead Figures; Lutz ). Godden observes that Chrstmascontrbutes to change because the word ynch does not cover hs death.Semantc weghts have changed so much that the word tastes derenty on the

coectve tongue and Grmm commts murder Joe s murdered by the agento a ang word (, ).

. Judth Haden, who emphasses the roe o gut n the seua reatonshpbetween Chrstmas and Joanna, epans Joannas use o the word Negro nths contet as nvokng the name o a peope who represent to her not gut butthe dark, savage powers o ertty ().

. Barbara Ladd mentons that n , percent o Arcan Amercansved n the South, but by that proporton had dropped by more than percent ().

. I use the word wrte here as t s used by Owen Robnson n the sensethat these peope have the most drect eect upon the deveopment o Joescharacter (). Ths, o course, must not suggest that Chrstmas s competeyshaped by others.

. The act that these characters convnce themseves that they are non-deoogca can not be generazed to other deoogca characters. As TerryEageton ponts out, the never n Lous Athussers cam deoogy neversays I am deoogca may be true most o the tme, but t s nonetheess anoverstatement ().

. Regous nsttutons, whch were sometmes epoted to justy racsm,shoud be dstngushed rom the regous ath that Hghtower eventuaydscovers. Hghtowers new ath s descrbed as that peace n whch to sn andbe orgven whch s the e o man (Light).

. Whe ths passages probematc presentaton mght be regarded asdescrbng Chrstmass racst response, the omnscent narrators presentatono Arcan Amercans s qute troubng as we.

works cited

Abdur-Rahman, Ayyah I. Whte Dsavowa, Back Enranchsement, and theHomoerotc n Wam Faukners Light in August. Faulkner Journal. (): .

Davs, Thadous M. Faulkners Negro: Art and the Southern Context. BatonRouge: Lousana State UP, .

Dougas, Mary. The Couvade and Menstruaton: The Reevance o TrbaStudes. Implicit Meanings: Selected Essays in Anthropology. nd ed. .London: Routedge, . .

. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo.. London: Routedge & Kegan Pau, .

Duva, John N. Faulkners Marginal Couple: Invisible, Outlaw, and Unspeakable


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Light in August and Social Change