Lost In The South

William Faulkner (1897-1962) is one of the greatest writers in the modern literature of the United States. Light in August (1932), his seventh novel, presents the interweaving stories of a cast of different characters trying to find personal identities in the South. Through a detailed examination of his Light in August, this thesis will explore the identity issue of the main characters—Joe Christmas, Joanna Burden and Gail Hightower.This thesis is divided into three chapters. By analyzing Joe Christmas, the first chapter scrutinizes the identity crisis and points out the dark side of the South. The author proposes that Christmas's failure results from his uncertainty of his racial origin, which makes him rebel against any attempt to make him fully black or white.The second chapter studies the fate of both Joanna Burden and Gail Hightower. The former is burdened with the history of her family which supports the black. The latter is trapped in a fantasy, in which he fails to recognize the needs of his wife and his congregation. Unaware of their cultural identities, they can not face history and reality, thus unable to face themselves and become the margins of the society.Finally, with a drawing of the specific characteristic of the South, the thesis tries to discuss William Faulkner's critical observation of cultural identity and explore the causes of Faulkner's love-and-hate attitude towards the American South. The author claims that Faulkner attempts to reconstruct southern cultural identity through writing Light in August.