But not only the actions of the main protagonist Joe Christmas, are caused by the events in his past. Although the novel explores the issues of gender and race specifically, these particular thematic actions are part of Faulkner’s larger, more all-encompassing inquiry concerning the nature of identity and how it is influenced by a families history, the society and individual lives of the protagonists. To understand Faulkner’s characters actions in the present it is necessary to understand and know their history in the past, which determines their present greatly. The past is one of the most important facts in the whole story for half of the book is written in flashbacks, while the story itself seems to take just a small part from the whole large part. The novel also explores issues of gender and race specifically, but these particular thematic currents intersect to become part of Faulkner’s larger inquiry concerning the nature of identity and how it is influenced by ones’ own history. Therefore it is likely that another point in the novel is far more important than simply the story of Christmas’ life: the past that determines the present and burdens its owners. Although the book is considered as primarily Christmas’ story it is noticeable that the story of Christmas life from adolescence to his present age of thirty-three just takes a few pages in the whole novel. As almost in all of William Faulkner’s novels in “Light in August” the past determines the present like nothing else in the whole story.
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