Major Themes

Race

Arguably the most important theme in Light In August is that of race. This encompasses the question of racial identity, what it means to be biracial, and the problem of Southern racism. Joe Christmas is the center figure for this theme. He looks white, but believes that he has some unknown amount of black blood. Throughout the novel, this is a significant problem for Christmas. He is at times disgusted by blackness, beating a prostitute for being willing to sleep with a black man, and at other times lives in black communities and does his best to absorb the " blackness" of those around him. He is both ashamed and proud of his black ancestry, always feeling a need to tell anyone he is close to of his racial heritage. He himself acknowledges that his quest to come to terms with his racial identity has completely shaped his lifeà ‚-he tells Joanna that if he is not partially black, he has wasted an awful lot of time.

The novel deals with the question of whether Christmasà ‚'s racial identity crisis is a necessary result of his biracial blood, or whether it is instead a result of the societal definitions of race. Gavin Stevens represents the first optionà ‚-he imagines Christmasà ‚'s white and black bloods as literally distinct from one another, and at war with each other. Christmas is not ultimately content to stay in black society, but he knows that he is in danger as long as he is in white society, and he feels as if he is always being forced out, thus he ultimately feels isolated in either society.

Christmas is also at the center of the question of Southern racism. The principal action in the book takes place about seventy-five years after emancipation, and yet many of the social mores of the antebellum South are still clearly in place. Doc Hines faces no punishment for cold-blooded murder because his victim was partially black. Christmasà ‚'s guilt in the case of Joannaà ‚'s murder is assumed because he is partially black, and he is lynched because he slept with a white woman. Christmasà ‚'s lynching, however, is not that simple. Although Faulkner builds the suspense over whether the people of Jefferson or the people of Mottstown will lynch Christmas, in the end neither town is interested in following through. Christmasà ‚'s lynching takes place at the hands of one man, and those who witness it are horrified. Thus the South of Light In August seems to have at least begun to move forward, yet the progress it has made is so miniscule that it only serves to highlight the progress that has not been made.