Burden: The Name Says it All in Faulkners Light in August :: Light August Essays

Burden The Name Says it All in Light in August Expecting parents put so more than thought, time, and energy into the choosing of a unwrap for their baby. They turn to family trees and dictionaries of names to help in their important decision. In many ways, a childs name can determine who they allow for become and what kind of person they will be. Then in that location is the end name. Its automatic no one has a choice in it. The last name perhaps has more of an impact on determining who a person will become, because the last name carries generations of ideals, memories, and pride. William Faulkner chose very significant last names for the characters in the novel Light in August (1932). Light in August is a story about Joe Christmas, a man shunned from society because of his possible blue heritage. The novel describes parts of his youth with a very strict and religious adopted family, his struggle with himself, and his life in Jefferson, Mississippi. There he becomes involved with and in the end murders Joanna Burden, a so-called nigger lover. Joanna is a very odd woman with a rather unusual past. Her last name represents generations of self-imposed struggle and despair. Faulkner gave her and her family the last name of Burden to further illustrate, explain, and characterize Joanna and her nature. Joanna is first mentioned in Chapter Two by a townsman-type narrator as, a woman of middleage. She has lived in the house since she was born, in time she is still a stranger, a foreigner whose people moved in from the North during Reconstruction. A Yankee, a lover of negroes, about whom in the town there is still talk of queer relations with negroes in the town (33). It is clearly evident that Joanna Burden has no sense of community with the townsmen, nor they with her. In fact, in regards to the wake at her home, one man check outs, My pappy says he can remember how fifty years ago folks said it ought to be burned, and with a little humans fat meat to st art it good (35). Furthermore, another character elaborates by saying, They say she is still mixed up with niggers. Visits them when they are sick, like they was white. . . . Folks say she claims that niggers are the same as white folks. Thats why folks dont never go out there (38).