South Circular
However, Carter’s purpose is one of feminine emancipation, whereas as Faulkner’s purpose is foggier. Although he could be seen as negating feminism as a ‘village misogynist’, it is also possible to see his presentation of women as being the opposite of men, whose ‘rocklike’ characters are flawed and imperfect. In this way, it would seem that Faulkner is praising women by showing them to be the more natural and empathetic sex rather than the ‘men that have different blood in them’ who will never ‘stop hating each other.’ lthough we have seen so far that Faulkner uses the loss of order and control as a negative concept, one that terrifies and also questions society’s intrinsic and extrinsic purpose, he also presents order and control as themselves a source of pain and ‘punishment’, especially for Joe Christmas. This entrapping idea of control and order is all rooted in the strong Puritan and Calvinist beliefs held by the townsfolk, and most importantly McEachern. It is with McEachern where his thirst for order and deterministic perception of punishment – the need for ‘perfectly logical and reasonable and inescapable’ Calvinistic punishment – originates. These traits surround Joe throughout his life and death, from as early as when we are first introduced to his ‘sharply creased’ and ‘ruthless’ personality (note ‘ruthless’ also is used to describe McEachern). Faulkner presents the ideas of predestination and Calvinistic salvation as catalysing Joe’s deep-seated issues with order whilst simultaneously critiquing the hypocritical and God-fearing attitudes held by a large population of the Southern States. Faulkner himself was against the all-pervading, franchised religion in the USA, and by critiquing its need for order, he shows it to be flawed in the way that Joe is: stubbornly incapable of change and trapped by the determinist ideology behind it. Light in August shows that humankind (individual and societal) is obsessed with order and is terrified of a world without control. It also serves as a warning that this obsession can lead to pain and, in the context of 20th century racist America, this obsession is irrational and based on prejudice. However, at the same time, Faulkner uses the philosophy of Calvinism and its effects to highlight the problems with an idealized world which is too ordered. I believe that Faulkner, in characteristically Gothic fashion, is telling us to be wary of the loss of order and all the angst it brings, but also to reject the imposition of strict and unwavering control. A
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