Female Sexuality

Like many of Faulkner's novels, the theme of female sexuality has an important place in Light In August. Each of the unmarried female characters in the novel displays a significant amount of sexuality. Bobbie Allen is a prostitute, Lena Grove and Milly Hines both have children out of wedlock, and Miss Atkins and Joanna Burden both participate in highly sexualized relationships. All of these characters are practically defined by their sexuality, and yet they have very little else in common.

Joe Christmas's youthful perception of female sexuality is similar to that of male characters such as Quentin Compson and Horace Benbow in Sound and the Fury and Flags in the Dust, respectively. He is physically repulsed by the idea of menstruation, and he is disturbed by the idea of a promiscuous woman. He even imagines the virgin female as a beautiful urn - a comparison made in both of the above-mentioned novels as well. Unlike Quentin and Horace, John Christmas moves beyond his early obsession with female purity. Although he is at first surprised and disconcerted to learn that Bobbie Allen is a prostitute, he adjusts to the idea quickly, and spends much of the rest of his adult life sleeping with other prostitutes. Yet Christmas never seems to completely accept female sexuality, which may be why he prefers prostitutes. Whereas Joanna Burden's unbridled sexuality is shocking compared to her public persona, the prostitutes Christmas sleeps with have few surprises.

Milly Hines, who is only present in the novel through other characters' remembrances, faces a much more classic Faulknerian fate for her sexual indiscretions. She has sex out of wedlock, and her father kills her lover, essentially causing her tragic death. Lena Grove, on the other hand, who is the most prominent female character in the novel, is affected very little by her sexual behavior.

Although Lena gets pregnant and must leave home, her pregnancy becomes the vehicle through which she gets to travel the South. The characters that Lena meets all look at her with a certain degree of embarrassment for her condition, and yet she seems completely oblivious to this throughout the novel. And although these characters all can tell that she is unwed, even those that treat her harshly for it (such as Martha Armstid) actually show her great kindness. Thus unlike many of Faulkner's other works, Light In August does not necessarily treat female sexuality as a forerunner to tragedy. Although the social customs of the novel's community certainly do not make it easy to be an unmarried mother, Lena's story makes it clear that the South can be more forgiving of female sexuality in certain circumstances.