Light in August is an excellent
example of Freudian psychology. Faulkner gives a fully developed narrative of the
childhood of Joe Christmas, so that we understand that his early trauma resulted in a
troubled adulthood. Many critics believe that the opening sentence of Chapter
6
Memory
believes before knowing
remembers
references the
subconscious, one focus of modern psychology. Joe's reactions to incidents with the
black prostitute, Bobbie, and Joanna Burden are only understandable when Joe's past is
examined, beginning with the orphanage, his earliest memory. Joe himself is unable to
remember all that preceded his murder of Joanna Burden and is thus unable to see a
cause/effect relationship between his past and present, yet the reader can play the
psychoanalyst and explore events that impacted Joe's development into a man. We see
such events as the dietician calling Joe racial slurs, and attempting to bribe the
child she thought was spying on her lovemaking with an intern, McEachern's repeated
beatings of the child and adolescent, Mrs McEachern's unappreciated attempts at kindness
and pity, Bobbie's rejection of the adolescent Joe, and finally the horrific deeds of
Joe's grandfather.
Faulkner, to a lesser extent, provides
backgrounds of other, less central, characters as well: Lena, Percy Grimm, Hightower.
These backgrounds serve to show how childhood and adolescent events shaped the present
situations of these characters.
No comments:
Post a Comment