Light In August: Unity Under Loose Structure

Light in August, a masterpiece of William Faulkner, is considered to be relatively easy to understand and consequently popular with the readers. But even those who thought highly of the novel seemed to feel awkward at its loose structure. There's a great paradox between its easiness and popularity and its external fragmentary narrative structure and lack of unity. Thus, those who disliked him argued that it was structurally defective while his admirers have been racking their brains to justify it. Today, eighty years after its publication, the undiminished popularity of the novel has long proved its total value, yet its apparent loose structure remains a subject for dispute.Approaching Light in August from a new perspective, this thesis aims at throwing some light on the matched structure and theme of the novel so as to reveal its unity under the apparent loose structure. The episodic narrative fragments of the novel can be recuperated into four strands with Joe Christmas, Joanna Burden, Gail Hightower and Lena Grove. Joe Christmas makes insistent and persistent search for his racial identity all his life. Joanna Burden, to some extent Joe's lover, is heavily burdened with and dies greatly due to her family heritage. Gail Hightower, haunted by his grandfather's past, loses touch with reality, but achieves a spiritual rebirth. Lena Grove, a pregnant young woman searching for her fled lover, symbolizes the wholeness of life. Because of their different pasts and different attitudes towards life, they reach different endings. Joe Christmas, Joanna Burden and Gail Hightower are unable to get rid of their past and consequently isolated from the community; while Lena, a simple girl with no past, accepts life as it is and is thus immediately welcomed by the strange community. The strand of Lena confirms the ideal of wholeness in the light of which the other alienated characters are judged. On the basis of the similarities and dissimilarities, one strand echoes the other. Thus, the novel achieves its thematic unity. At the same time, the wholeness of the novel is also derived from its devices of symbols and imagery.Therefore, despite the apparent looseness, the structure of Light in August obtains internal cohesion, which also reflects the disorder and contradiction of the American South at that time.