Kirsten+Light+in+August

**The Summary** The story Light In August is about two people Lena Grove and Joe Christmas. Joe Christmas is brought up believing that he is of two diffrent races and that just because he has a little black in him that means he is just as low and unworthy as the full black people of the world. He is an orphan and is brought up by a hard Presbyterian man named McEachern. He beats any self worth or happines out of him and when Christmas falls in love with a prostitute who McEachern doesn't approve of and when Christmas and McEachern get in an arguement over her Joe kills him. He moves from town to town and lives in white and black communities both, and he eventually ends up in Jefferson Mississippi. Where he works at a saw mill.He gets in a weird relationship with JoAnna Burden who is a white and was brought up in the north and is frowned down on by the other white people of the town because she isn't racist. She goes from always wanting to sex to being really religious and when she tries to get Christmas to follow her and her beliefs he wouldn't. So she decides they both must die, and when she tries to pull out a gun he kills her and burns down the house. The fire interests the city and the police are hot on his tail, the story continues with the capture then the escape then the recapture and the trial, who knows what Joe Christmases fate will eventually be.

Lena Grove is a young woman who got knocked up in Alabama by Lucas Burch who had to leave and said he would send for her. Walks all the way to Jefferson Mississippi just because shes heard he is in that area, when she leaves Alabama she is about seven months pregnant. She finds out that Lucas Burch is there under a false name of Joe Brown. Who at the time was selling whiskey with Joe Christmas, the person who helped her find Lucas was Byron Bunch and with the help of him Lenas story continues.

** Chapter Summarys and Character Descriptions: ** http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/Light-in-August.id-187.html

http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahsbookclub/lightinaugust/lite_about/2

**My Thoughts** I thought this book was very interesting because of use of multiple stories all interetwined into one. Joe Christmases story really spiced up this book because it was a page turner and it showed how the opinions of others can convince you that your something your not. And that when you get mixed up with the wrong kind of people it can take you down the wrong path in life. Lena Groves story really adds to this book because her babys dad is connected to Joe Christmas because they sell whiskey illegally together. The fact that there is kinda a romance going on between Byron Bunch and Lena Grove now all because Byron had helped Lena find Lucas aka "Joe Brown." The author really knows how to keep you interested in the book and keep you wanting to read it. I can definitelly see why this book is one of the college bound choices.

**Literary Elements** Point of View: It was mostly done by an outside narrarator with ocassional sequences where the characters thoughts would tell the story Setting: Alabama, Jefferson Mississippi in the early 1930's Genre: Fiction **About the Author:** William Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, as the oldest of four children of Murray Charles Faulkner and Maud Faulkner. While he was still a child, the family settled in Mississippi. Faulkner lived most of his life in the town. At the age of 13, he began to write poetry. At the Oxford High School he played quarterback on football team. Before graduating, he dropped out school and worked in his grandfather's bank. After being rejected from the army because he was too short (5' 5''), Faulkner enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and had basic training in Toronto. He served with the RAF in World War I, but did not see any action. The war was over before he could make his first solo flight. This did not stop him later telling that he was shot down in France. After the war he studied literature at the University of Mississippi. He also wrote some poems and drew cartoons for the university's humor magazine, //The Scream//. In 1920 Faulkner left the university without taking a degree. Faulkner moved to New York City where he worked as a clerk in a bookstore and then returned to Oxford. For a time Faulkner supported himself as a postmaster at the University of Mississippi, but was fired for reading on the job. He drifted to New Orleans where Sherwood Anderson encouraged him to write fiction rather than poetry.

**Books by William Faulkner:** http://books.google.com/books?as_auth=William+Faulkner&source=an&sa=X&oi=book_group&resnum=7&ct=title&cad=author-navigational

**More about the author:** http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/faulkner.html