Light in August

A disgraced former minister, Gail Hightower spends most of his time reading alone in his decaying house. His only regular company is Byron Bunch, who visits him for evening chats. Otherwise, his life is static: “He lives dissociated from mechanical time” (366). Physically, Hightower is overweight, and he often gives off a potent body odor: “Hightower is a tall man, and he was thin once. But he is not thin now. His skin is the color of flour sacking and his upper body in shape is like a loosely filled sack falling from his gaunt shoulders of its own weight, upon his lap” (78-79). The lack of momentum in Hightower’s life, and his physical deterioration, contribute to Faulkner’s commentary on the dangers of communities. After the Jefferson townsfolk shun Hightower as a young man, he is left frozen in place. His health deteriorates, and he dies prematurely in his fifties.

Despite being ousted by his neighbors, Hightower tries to adhere to principles of kindness and sympathy, not resentment. In his introductory chapter, Chapter 3, he is established as a kind and philanthropic person. Without hesitation, he donates his inheritance to charity: “When he quitted the seminary he had a small income inherited from his father, which, as soon as he got his church, he forwarded promptly on receipt of the quarterly checks to an institution for delinquent girls in Memphis” (58). Later, when Mr. Hines expresses hatred toward his own grandson, Hightower chooses to listen and contemplate rather than argue and escalate. When Lena gives birth, he makes sure she has everything she needs, even though he disagrees with the decisions she’s made. Consistently, Hightower proves to be one of the kindest characters in the story, more so than many of his churchgoing neighbors. His character shows that outsiders can have stronger moral foundations than the communities that banish them.

Hightower is also haunted by his family’s past. His grandfather’s death in the Civil War motivates him to preach in Jefferson, showing the power family history can have on a person’s life choices. The ghosts of his past fuel his sermons with passion, ultimately to his detriment, as the community is hostile toward his preaching style. His background provides an engaging parallel to Joe Christmas, who likewise suffers because of the actions of his family. Hightower isn’t judged because of his race, but his life is dramatically affected by the decisions of his forefathers, showing the heavy burden of history on people and places. 

Young and naïve, Lena Grove begins the story pregnant, unmarried, and in search of Lucas Burch. Many people judge Lena for the predicament she’s in, but her warm personality helps bring out the kindness in strangers. When Armstid picks her up in the beginning of the novel, he quickly observes her pleasant nature: “she looks up at him quietly and pleasantly: young, pleasantfaced, candid, friendly, and alert” (11). Wherever she goes, Lena can find help. In Jefferson, Byron repeatedly goes out of his way to help her. At the end of the novel, the repairman lets Lena keep traveling with him without any opposition. The reaction of strangers to Lena provides a contrast to Joe Christmas, who is often treated with skepticism or disgust. Throughout Light in August, Lena shows that while people in the South aren’t afraid to judge a pregnant unmarried woman, they aren’t afraid to help her either. Their treatment of her makes the Southern communities of Faulkner’s story multi-dimensional and not simplistically hostile.

While she relies on the kindness of strangers, Lena is also resourceful and determined. She isn’t afraid to set out for Jefferson by herself. She doesn’t see her child’s father until the end of the story but remains calm throughout the narrative. As the novel ends, Lena is still unmarried, but she won’t settle for marrying Byron and rejects his advances. Repeatedly, Lena acts upon her own will and stands up for herself. Perceived as meek and foolish by strangers, she proves be an independent and strong female character. Faulkner reveals Lena’s strengths to the reader, while most of the characters perceive her as naïve, showing the flaws of narrowminded thinking toward women.

Structurally, Lena’s storyline creates the bookends of Light in August. As she is a newcomer in Jefferson, her perspective is an appropriate one to open the story, as the reader is new to the world, too. Similarly, she exits Jefferson as the reader leaves the story, giving the narrative a cohesive flow. Although she’s further from home than ever before, Lena is in a familiar situation at the end: looking for Joe Brown. Her circular ending is like Joe Christmas’s life of endless wandering and Hightower’s idleness in his home, fitting into the novel’s motif of trapped characters. 

Hard-working and noble, Byron Bunch has worked in the mill in Jefferson for seven years. He chooses to work on Saturdays, is the only person who speaks to Hightower, and regularly helps Lena. He’s committed to a hard work ethic and faith but also acknowledges he lacks intellect. When Lena first arrives, Byron wants to intuit something special but can’t: “It seemed to him that fate, circumstance, had set a warning in the sky all day long in that pillar of yellow smoke, and he too stupid to read it” (82). Similarly, Hightower advises Byron not to get involved with Lena, but Byron is too stubborn and single-minded to listen. Byron ends the story still helpful and kind, but with none of his inner desires fulfilled. He couldn’t stop Brown, and Lena refuses to marry him. His character exemplifies Southern hospitality while also showing how kindness can be misguided and exploited. 

Byron’s failure to change adheres to the novel’s motif of trapped characters. After the fire and murder, and Joe’s grisly death, Byron remains the same. In the final chapter, the repairman observes: “He looked like a good fellow, the kind that would hold a job steady and work at the same job a long time, without bothering anybody about a raise neither, long as they let him keep on working” (496). The story ends with Byron as the same type of person as when it began.

Although he’s not the most complex character, Byron contributes to the novel’s cautionary message about small communities. As Joe’s trial commences, Byron thinks of how little the town knew Joe, or Joanna, or even himself— “a small man who had lived in the town seven years yet whom even fewer of country people than knew either the murderer or the murdered, knew by name or habit” (415-416). Through Byron’s interiority, Faulkner shows how small towns can be hostile and alienating places. 

A lifelong resident of Jefferson, Joanna Burden spends most of her life isolated on her property. When Joe meets her, he sees she spends her time helping Black communities in the South: “advice, business, financial and religious, to the presidents and faculties and trustees, and advice personal and practical to young girl students and even alumnae, of a dozen negro schools and colleges through the south” (233). Philanthropic and caring, she offers Joe her food when she finds him stealing it. She doesn’t pass judgment and ends up carrying out an affair with the very man who broke into her house. When the Jefferson townsfolk find out Joe is biracial, they are cruel and racist. Joanna, on the other hand, looks for a way he can better himself through his heritage by recommending he study law at a Black school. Her character offers a glimmer of hope in the turmoil of racial tension in the South.

Joanna also develops the novel’s commentary on love and community. Middle-aged and a virgin, Joanna turns lustful and wild during her affair with Joe Christmas. When she senses her body becoming infertile, she wishes for more time to be sinful. Joe, however, continues to reject Joanna’s desires for commitment and children, and his rejections and abuse drive her to become suicidal. Her storyline ends with her throat slashed and her house in flames, one of the most tragic endings of Light in August. Love, for Joanna, leads to her downfall, creating a cautionary message about intimacy. The reaction to her death by the town also adds to Faulkner’s critique of small towns. As the house burns, Faulkner comments on the crowd’s reaction to Joanna’s death:

She had lived such a quiet life, attended so to her own affairs, that she bequeathed to the town in which she had been born and lived and died a foreigner, an outlander, a kind of heritage of astonishment and outrage, for which, even though she had supplied them at last with an emotional barbecue, a Roman holiday almost, they would never forgive her and let her be dead in peace and quiet (289).

Joanna might have lived and died in Jefferson, but to them, she’ll always be a Yankee.