Sartoris, The Sound And The Fury, And As I Lay Dying
Light in August is probably Faulkner's most complex and difficult novel. Here he combined numerous themes on a large canvas where many aspects of life are vividly portrayed. The publication of this novel marked the end of Faulkner's greatest creative period — in four years he had published five substantial novels and numerous short stories. Light in August is the culmination of this creative period and is the novel in which Faulkner combines many of his previous themes with newer insights into human nature. In Sartoris, The Sound and the Fury, and As I Lay Dying, Faulkner had examined the relationship of the individual to his family. In his next major novel, Absalom, Absalom!, Faulkner returned to the family as the point of departure for his
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The toothpaste becomes the basic symbol. At the same time that it is a cleansing agent, it also serves as a phallic symbol. The result of the scene is his utter sickness caused by the "pink woman smelling obscurity behind the curtain" and the "listening . . . with astonished fatalism for what was about to happen to him." Each subsequent sex relation, therefore, brings a guilt feeling to Christmas. He associated sex with filth, sickness, violation of order, and the potential loss of individuality.
Likewise, it is significant that each of his subsequent encounters with sex is accompanied by strong sensory images. When he beats the young Negro girl, it is amid the strong odors of the barn and he is also reminded of the sickness caused by the toothpaste. Later, his first encounter with Bobbie Allen is in the restaurant where he goes to order food, and finally, he meets Joanna in her kitchen when he is stealing food from her. Each of these sensory occurrences recalls to him the scene with the dietitian and again threatens the loss of individuality and the breaking of an ordered …show more content…
This is a long essay on confronting social crisis
Hookwormridden heirs or good stock?: confronting social crisis in light in August.(Critical essay).
The Mississippi Quarterly 61.3 (Summer 2008): p435(25). (10364 words)
Full Text :COPYRIGHT 2008 Mississippi State University
IN ITS OPENING PAGES, LIGHT IN AUGUST VIVIDLY DESCRIBES THE DAMAGE caused by a lumber mill in rural Alabama:
It had been there seven years and in seven years more it would destroy all the timber within its reach. Then some of the machinery and most of the men who ran it and existed because of and for it would be loaded onto freight cars and moved away. But some of the machinery would be left ... gaunt, staring, motionless wheels rising from mounds of brick rubble and ragged weeds ... a stumppocked scene of profound and peaceful desolation, unplowed, untilled, gutting slowly into red and choked ravines.... Then the hamlet ... would not now even be remembered by the hookwormridden heirs at large who pulled the buildings down and burned them in
The toothpaste becomes the basic symbol. At the same time that it is a cleansing agent, it also serves as a phallic symbol. The result of the scene is his utter sickness caused by the "pink woman smelling obscurity behind the curtain" and the "listening . . . with astonished fatalism for what was about to happen to him." Each subsequent sex relation, therefore, brings a guilt feeling to Christmas. He associated sex with filth, sickness, violation of order, and the potential loss of individuality.
Likewise, it is significant that each of his subsequent encounters with sex is accompanied by strong sensory images. When he beats the young Negro girl, it is amid the strong odors of the barn and he is also reminded of the sickness caused by the toothpaste. Later, his first encounter with Bobbie Allen is in the restaurant where he goes to order food, and finally, he meets Joanna in her kitchen when he is stealing food from her. Each of these sensory occurrences recalls to him the scene with the dietitian and again threatens the loss of individuality and the breaking of an ordered …show more content…
This is a long essay on confronting social crisis
Hookwormridden heirs or good stock?: confronting social crisis in light in August.(Critical essay).
The Mississippi Quarterly 61.3 (Summer 2008): p435(25). (10364 words)
Full Text :COPYRIGHT 2008 Mississippi State University
IN ITS OPENING PAGES, LIGHT IN AUGUST VIVIDLY DESCRIBES THE DAMAGE caused by a lumber mill in rural Alabama:
It had been there seven years and in seven years more it would destroy all the timber within its reach. Then some of the machinery and most of the men who ran it and existed because of and for it would be loaded onto freight cars and moved away. But some of the machinery would be left ... gaunt, staring, motionless wheels rising from mounds of brick rubble and ragged weeds ... a stumppocked scene of profound and peaceful desolation, unplowed, untilled, gutting slowly into red and choked ravines.... Then the hamlet ... would not now even be remembered by the hookwormridden heirs at large who pulled the buildings down and burned them in