The image that is striking to me in the first several chapters of Light in August is a shoe.  Within the first few pages Lena’s shoes are referenced on several occasions. As she is walking up the hill: “She went on out of sight, walking slowly, the shoes unlaced about her ankles…” (7). Additionally, when Armstid drops her off at the store in the morning: “She reached the earth, in the heavy, dusty shoes” (23).  Many of the “shoe” references concern Lena.  There is never any strong emphasis on her shoes, but rather just a passing mention of her usually unlaced, manly footwear.  However, Lena is not the only character that Faulkner employs the imagery of shoes with.  Joe Christmas also becomes victim to the constant reference and description of shoes.  In Christmas’s introduction he is described as “…like a tramp, yet not like a tramp either. His shoes were dusty and his trousers were soiled too” (31).  Then, much later on, when Christmas’s childhood is being explained, his unlaced shoes are brought up.  “His shoes were not laced. He had not learned to do that by himself yet…As they crossed the empty playground his dangling feet swung rhythmically to the man’s striding, the unlaced shoes flapping about his ankles” (138-39).  Of course, it is possible to say that mentioning a character’s shoe is merely just a part of his or her description, however the references are so numerous it appears to be more than mere character exposition, especially when one considers that the character of Hightower seems to be left out of the shoe imagery.

Light in August centers on the intertwining stories of three main characters: Lena, Hightower and Joe Christmas.  From what I have read of the novel thus far, the current theme that seems to connect them is this search for a place of acceptance and belonging.  Lena is walking across the country in search of her unborn child’s father. Christmas is a drifter trying to cope with a mixed identity within himself. Finally, Hightower seems to be the opposite. As opposed to Lena and Joe, Hightower is not physically searching for a place to belong, rather he is forcing his acceptance upon his town that does not want him there.  With Lena and Joe on these constant and literal quests – it makes sense to have the image of a shoe represent those journeys.  Lena has mainly walked from Alabama to Jefferson (not a short commute!) while pregnant in search of Lucas. Christmas is a drifter and really has no place to call home.  Both of these charactersspend a lot of time on their feet and therefore in some type of shoe.  On the other hand, we have Hightower who stays in one place (so far!).  As opposed to Lena and Joe who are searching for a place to belong, Hightower is searching for acceptance in a place he is already in.  It is because of this lack of physical searching that the image of a the shoe is not really associated with him at all.

So, it seems to be quite clear why Lena and Joe have this shoe imagery associated with them. However, why are the references always to a dusty shoe? Or an unlaced shoe? Or even, a heavy and manly shoe?  The shoes that are referenced are always imperfect.  There is never a clean, laced and perfectly fitted shoe.  The “flawed” shoes associated with Lena and Joe seem to be a representation of their flawed journeys.  The reader is aware almost immediately that Lena’s quest for Lucas will end in heartbreak. She seems to be unaware, or unwilling to admit, that her possible reunion with the father of her child will not have a happy ending.  Therefore, since the journey is flawed, so must be the item that represents that journey.  Christmas is a bit more difficult to analyze because at this point in the novel, there is still much to learn about him and where he is going.  In terms of his journey, the reader knows he is a drifter and that is about it.  However, his association with flawed shoes leads to the assumption that there is a definite flaw in his journey as well.

While reading LIA for the second time, I was continually reminded of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (1919). Apparently Faulkner was influenced and greatly encouraged by Anderson, with whom he spent some time in New Orleans. Anderson, like Faulkner, was a weaver of stories. Winesburg would later see its shadow in works like LIA and Go Down, Moses. It also occurred to me while reading that Faulkner is first and foremost a writer of stories. Each of the chapters in LIA has an autonomy of narration: each correlates to the others but in the same way that a quilt can be of many images that are stitched together. Reading Faulkner is like flipping through a family album and listening while the owner tells a story about each photo, not just who the person in the picture is, but the most significant moments of their life.

Joe Christmas is a fascinating character because, unlike any other we’ve read so far, he embodies all the major Faulknerian themes. He is part white, part negro, a quiet, shy child who becomes a violent and cold adult, a Christ figure and yet a villain, a kind of angel-turned-devil. He is conflicted about his roots, his origin, his upbringing, his sexual nature, and his religious nature. But more than anything he is superbly conflicted about the relationship between these things within him. What does it mean to be part white, part negro? Aside from an inability to find a proper social connection, Christmas is dislocated from his own body, his own soul. As Faulkner writes, “he looked like a phantom, a spirit, strayed out of its own world, and lost.” (114) Christmas is the Everyman of the Post-War South. He is another one of Faulkner’s “orphans” in search of a home but he is unique in that his primary internal struggle is also the primary struggle of the South, namely its racial divide. The voice of the South is as much a negro voice as it is a white voice.

It is in the following remarkable episode where Christmas, dressed in a white shirt, strays rudderless down a lonely, dark street, where the shadows of leaves slide “like scraps of black velvet” across his body, into a place called Freedman Town. He begins to hear the voices of invisible negroes:

They seemed to enclose him like bodiless voices murmuring talking laughing in a language not his… as if the black life, the black breathing had compounded the substance of breath so that not only voices but moving bodies and light itself must become fluid… with the now ponderable night inseparable and one.  (114)

I haven’t fully digested this entire episode yet, but it seems to me that in this moment Christmas becomes aware of his Negro blood, on a deeply personal level. More importantly it also seems that, despite the internal conflict he has experienced until now, Christmas, in this moment of supreme awareness, becomes conscious of a budding racial and spiritual unity. The episode begins, “Then he found himself” and, a page later, continues, “He could see now, the vague spreading world, the horizon.”  (116) Ultimately I don’t think the episode suggests a triumphant victory of self-discovery, however, but rather the profound need for one, and in this way Christmas goes far beyond the South, right to the heart of man.

In The Sound and the Fury, Quentin points out that “a nigger is not a person so much as a form of behavior; a sort of obverse reflection of the white people he lives among” (86). Christmas’s character in Light in August demonstrates this concept, as a secretly biracial individual with a primarily white phenotype, working among white colleagues in Jefferson, Mississippi. Understanding the social consequences of his complicated identity, Christmas attempts to dismiss himself from society altogether by living in the woods and largely keeping to himself. But regardless of how hermetic a lifestyle Christmas tries to maintain, he cannot escape his black roots in the south. Interestingly, Faulkner’s narrative style demonstrates Christmas’s own deep discomfort with his biracial identity in adult life, even before Joe Brown (his only accidental confidant) reveals his secret to Jefferson. 

Christmas’s internal struggle with his biracial identity is particularly poignant when he wanders into Freedman Town, the “negro section” of Jefferson. Faulkner’s third person narrative takes on dream-like quality mirroring the sleepy haze in which Christmas finds himself in this neighborhood: “without his being aware the street had begun to slope and before he knew it he was in Freedman Town, surrounded by the summer smell and the summer voices of invisible negroes” (114). Just as Christmas tries to avoid sleep and falls into it pages earlier when he is in the woods (111), he tries to avoid Freedman Town and falls into it when he is in society.

The description of his surroundings transitions from vivid images such as “the redbarred trousers and the soiled colored shirt” that Joe Brown wears in the white neighborhood  (113) to smells, noises, and feelings that illuminate the black neighborhood. These senses are all more physical than sight in that they require a close physical proximity to the source of the smell, noise, or feeling, which brings attention to the physicality of the black body. Ironically, the narrative frequently attempts to deny the presence of black bodies, attributing the voices and smells to “invisible” (114), “fluid” (114), “bodiless” (115) beings surrounding Christmas in his dreamlike Freedman Town experience. This reflects Christmas’s own denial of his partially black body, but he is terribly aware of his physical form as he wanders through the neighborhood as white-looking foreigner. This attention to the black body disregards any cognitive or social aspects of the black individuals in that society, evoking of a kind of feral environment that is beyond words or convention. Even when Christmas acknowledges the voices of the neighborhood folk, he describes their speech as “a language not his” (114). Just being in Freedman Town for a short time reduces Christmas to his own feral state, and he tries to escape as quickly as possible consumed by his overworked, over-stimulated physical state: “He began to run, glaring, his teeth glaring , his inbreath cold on his dry teeth and lips, toward the next street lamp… his heart hammering… he stopped here, panting, glaring, his heart thudding” (115). The entire scene is reminiscent of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Just as Marlow floats down the river and loses touch with his sense of civilized behavior, Christmas is temporarily “returned to the lightless hot wet primogenitive Female” (115). Christmas contrasts blackness and whiteness with physical states, using adjectives such as “liquid,” “hot,” and “wet” to describe blackness versus “cold” and “dry” to describe whiteness. He experiences all of these sensations as he makes his way back to the white part of Jefferson, and eventually back to his home in the woods, all the time reflecting his biracial identity.

Faulkner’s language in this section also mirrors Christmas’s biracial identity in that he combines unrelated words to describe the people and environment surrounding Christmas. The voices of the negro women are “fecundmellow” (115), Freedman Town exists in garland of “Augusttremulous” lights (116), Christmas’s earliest memory is of a “sootbleakened” red brick building (119), and the orphans he lives with in that building are “sparrowlike” and “childtrebling” (119). Christmas is a combination of two unlike things, and his perception of the world is described by combining unlike words that create one exact image.

Unfortunately, navigating his way through society is not as simple as putting two unlike words together to make a new word. While he may be willing to forge new definitions to understand the world, the South is not ready at Christmas’s time to accept his complicated heredity (black or white), so he is left to his own devices and naturally uncomfortable with his rejected identity.

As we learn more about Christmas’s upbringing, Faulkner relates a somewhat disturbing scene from the McEachern era that I would like to examine more closely. The beginning of chapter 7 includes a key line, signaled by the use of italics: “On this day I became a man.” The episode subsequently related deals with McEachern demanding that Christmas memorize a piece of the Catechism and then brutally punishing him when he fails to do so. After several failed attempts, Faulkner describes McEachern’s voice: “His voice was not unkind. It was not human, personal, at all. It was just cold, implacable, like written or printed words” (149). These lines echo Addie Bundren, in some ways, with her skepticism of the value of words. It is also crucial that McEachern’s voice is compared to “written or printed words”–like the Catechism he is forcing Christmas to memorize.

For the 8-year-old Christmas, these words are dead on the page; he cannot relate to them or absorb their meaning. The question this raises for me is, does their “written-ness” cause this? Or does McEachern’s brutality create a kind of rift between the words of the Catechism and reality? We talked a lot about speech vs written text in terms of narration, but it seems relevant in this context as well.

A few pages later, this theme is explored in greater detail. “When McEachern approached he saw that the boy was not looking at the page at all, that his eyes were quite fixed and quite blank. When he put his hand on the book he found that the boy was clinging to it as if it were a rope or a post” (151). Here, we see that Christmas is not even processing the text before him. His eyes glaze over and the words become not only meaningless, but essentially nonexistent. At the same time, the second sentence suggests that Christmas is physically attached to the book in a very different way. This disconnect between the absence of meaning in the book and a desperate “clinging” to it is very intriguing. If the words do nothing for Christmas, why does he feel this attachment to the book itself? Again, how do we separate Christmas’s feelings about the text from his feelings about McEachern?

Shifting back to the conclusion of chapter 6, this line stands out: “The child was not listening. He was not bothered. He did not especially care, anymore than if the man had said the day was hot when it was not hot. He didn’t even both to say to himself My name ain’t McEachern. My name is Christmas There was no need to bother about that yet. There was plenty of time” (145). This last piece is essential, as it seems to set up the rebelliousness that will follow as Christmas gets older (and his “becoming a man” in chapter 7). The story of the Catechism is significant, then, as it signals an early demonstration of protest against McEachern. Christmas refuses food from Mrs McEachern, and passively accepts his beating without acquiescing to McEachern’s demands. Ironically, this image of an innocent child being whipped conjures up the idea of a Christ figure. For all of McEachern’s alleged piety, he overlooks the Christ-like actions of the child he is trying to punish. Given Faulkner’s depictions of Christians (here and elsewhere) this contradiction is not surprising.

While reading Faulkner, one can often pass by on the subtle themes he portrays throughout the novel.  There’s this constant battle of life and death – as signified in the title itself.

            First and foremost, the idea of childbirth is shone under such negative lighting. It’s seen as the root of all the future problems and it is never fully acknowledged by anyone besides Darl Bundren.  When Addie has an affair with Whitfield and becomes pregnant with Jewel, she hides her affair but chooses to keep the child. Granted the novel takes place in such a time in the south that an abortion seemed out of question. This idea parallels the great lengths Dewey Dell goes to try to get an abortion. Her primary drive to take Addie’s coffin to the city is so that she herself could get an abortion.  Throughout the novel, Addie is seen in favor of everything Jewel does. From an outside perspective, she favors Jewel over her other children. From the beginning of Jewel’s narrative, he’s full of so much hate and tension and he knows he’s different. It isn’t until we hear from Darl and read Addie’s chapter do we realize, he was “born out of sin” and maybe deep down knows that’s who he differs from his siblings. On the other hand, we have Dewey Dell who is pregnant and is desperately trying to abort her child. Again, Darl is the only other character who knows about this, without ever having been told.

            After we’re certain of Addies’ death, she comes back to recount her side of the things. “When he was born I knew that motherhood was invented by someone who had to have a word for it because the ones that had the children didn’t care whether there was a word for it or not” (AILD 171-172). She talks a lot about how Anse was “dead” (to her?) after Cash was born. 

Laura Nuzzo

Reaction Paper 4

Dewey Dell throughout this entire novel has been, in my opinion, the most incredible character to follow. A woman so enveloped in her own sexuality that she went as far as to sexualize a cow. But, you have to love her, the poor thing went and got herself pregnant and throughout the entire novel I just felt awful for her. Out of all the reasons for the Bundrens to want to go to town, this is the one I wanted to see happen. I just wanted her to get this pregnancy terminated so she can move on with her life. But, when it comes down to it, beneath these adult thoughts, she proves how young and innocent she really is.

First, she had to deal with Moseley, a pro-life pharmacist that wants nothing to do with her premarital pregnancy that she wants to terminate. “The Lord gave you what you have, even if He did use the devil to do it; you let Him take it away if it is his will to do so” (AILD 203). Now listening to this man talk down to her was hard enough, but listening to the most innocent of responses was even harder, all she keeps saying is “Lafe said I could get something at the drugstore” (AILD 203). Under this being who just wants to seem so adult in her sexual decisions, is a young, confused, girl that just wants her nightmare to be over. After being turned down by the pharmacist all she wants is “Him [God] to hide her away from the sight of man” (AILD 215). Up until these incidents she still tended to sexualize herself and most things around her. I really don’t think she understood that being turned down was an option. I think that repetition of “Lafe said…” was her only way of coping to this shock. This will not be the only instance of repetition in an uncertain situation. Now, after swearing off her sexuality for a while, irony strikes, MacGowan. This isn’t a man; this is a waste of flesh, pretending to be a doctor so he can have his way with a desperate young girl. But, desperate she was, and she just wanted to believe him, and wanted to believe in these “pills.” After this, she knew it was a farce, and just kept restating “it aint going to work” (AILD 251). Sadly, there was no backup plan for her, she still has her ten dollars so I suppose she was just going to ask her family to stop in every town on the way home until she found a willing doctor. That, or give the money back to Lafe, who I’m sure would help her find a way if he wasn’t in “Texas” by then.

Now, after all of these people bashing and taking advantage of her, there is one more individual to betray her, her father. This other less-than-a-man takes her money and uses it for his own selfish need to look good for his new wife. Not going to lie, I shed a few tears reading the last words of Dewey Dell. She can’t assert herself, once again she childishly reiterating “it’s [the money] not mine” (AILD 256). Every situation that she should have asserted herself, she didn’t. This girl had dreams of sexuality and adulthood, but when it was time to produce, you see how young she is. Sadly, this book did not have what The Sound and the Fury had, you don’t find out about these characters in the future. All you are left with is this poor unfortunate soul having to deal with being pregnant, being taunted, being raped, being stolen from, and having a new mother she never knew about. Hopefully her father will pay her back before it’s too late so she can keep trying. But ultimately the end I see for Dewey Dell is either suicide or a botched termination.

           Faulkner, in As I Lay Dying, utilizes the technique of multi-narrators to present different perspectives on the same event. Moseley’s passage is particularly interesting for its complete disassociation as to who any of the Bundrens are. Moseley’s perspective is solely based on first appearance, and gives us a description of this dysfunctional family as the eye of a stranger, similar to the readers of the novel.

            Mosley’s friend Albert’s account of the Bundrens arguing with the marshal on the street gives us a paradoxical, contradictory view of modernity. Anse is arguing with the marshal who wants him and his wagon out of town, as the folks couldn’t stand the smell of Addie’s corpse. Anse argues with the marshal, “it’s a public street, I reckon we can stop to buy something same as airy other man. We got the money to pay for hit, and hit aint airy law that says a man cant spend his money where he wants.” (204) Anse demonstrates his understanding of modern law and power of money in the capitalist society. Meanwhile, the reason he is waiting outside is because Darl has gone into the hardware store to buy cement to pour over Cash’s broken leg. Instead of taking Cash to a doctor, the Bundrens decide to completely illogically experiment with their own remedies.

            While Anse attests that a man can spend his money where he wants, Dewey Dell’s case shows that a woman clearly does not have the same power. Even when she does have the money to pay for her abortion pills, Moseley the “respectable druggist, that’s kept store and raised a family and been a church-member for fifty-six years in this town” refuses to sell it to her. He is appalled by the fact that her “precious Lafe” didn’t come to get the pills himself. He questions Dewey Dell as to if Lafe was even “enough of a man to give [her] the money.” Moseley represents the idea of a Southern gentleman, one who strongly believes that fathers, brothers, husbands, a man should take care of the woman, that a man and woman must marry if they are having sex, and that a man does not sell contraceptives to a lady.

            At one point, Moseley hesitates and starts to think, “I looked at her. But it’s a hard life they have; sometimes a man….” Moseley does not allow himself to finish this empathetic thought and instead abruptly decides that there can’t ever be an excuse for a sin. Mosely refuses to think outside of his rigid religious views, and does not allow himself to reason out this issue with his own logic, that sometimes a man forces his way with a woman, sometimes a man does not want to support the woman and the child, there are a million endings to the thought “sometimes a man…” that would make a woman not want to have a child. (202)

            Moseley truly encapsulates the extreme complexity of the Southern dilemma as it is even presented today. With the majority of Republicans being White male Christians of the South, and their opposition to the Affordable Health Care Act – an act that would not only guarantee health care to low income families, but would also guarantee free birth control to all female citizens of the United States, one can’t help but assume, that the idea of the woman’s right and the liberty to make her own independent choices, has still, yet to seep into mainstream Southern society.