NCHS AP English Language

Chapter 4 and Joe Christmas analysis - Nathan Sheptock

Joe Christmas, in connection with most all other major characters within the novel, has particular influence on nearly all events as well as characters throughout the continuing story line; influence which is revealed from what is both said and suggested about his character and his actions. His real influence stems from the book's perception of him as an outsider, one who came from nowhere and calls nowhere his home. People right away see him as more than likely a foreigner who is better off keeping to himself, which is exactly what he does, until he meets Joe Brown. The relationship which soon grows between them allows Joe C. to for possibly the first time in his life to let his guard down, enough to the point where he reveals to Joe B. his deepest secret, that he has Negro blood in him. This without a doubt is the major cause of his deep separation from society throughout his life up to this point. Ever since he has known of his biracial heritage, he has struggled to find peace, as he says, with those who will accept him for who he is. Belonging fully to neither the white or black societies, he is in a sense entirely isolated from everyone he has ever known, even those whom he has grown close to. This can obviously be primary grounds for his tendency to result to violence when placed in conflict with threats to the secrecy which he holds (like when Joe B. calls him a damn niggerblood, and also his eventual murder of Mrs. Burden- sort of ironic). This isolation, although seemingly mostly influential on him alone, is in fact most influential in its power to relate his character to nearly all the other major characters in the novel (so far). Although they have very contrasting backgrounds, mindsets, motives for actions, and present situations, they are all inherently tied to each other through the feeling of isolation which they are bound to: Lena in her being an unwed, very young expectant mother, to which nearly everyone looks down upon; Rev. Hightower, in past instances of his wife’s death and his departure from the Church, and in his refusal to leave town so as to become the town recluse; Joe Brown in his hiding from Lena, obvious drinking problem, and suspicion in the death of Mrs. Burden; even Byron Bunch, in his secret love for Lena, weekend choir-services in the country, and his being the only frequent visitor to Hightower’s house. This isolation binds these characters together in a way that cannot easily be explained, and without a doubts influences that actions they each take, even those which they do not wish to take. This can also be noted as another very influential theme, irony, at work in this novel also- what separates them from the rest of society is in fact what brings them all together, their sense of isolation. This interconnectedness brought forth through separation and isolation will hopefully continue to influence, to a great extent, these character’s lives as they progress with time and bring their personal stories to a juncture when they will meet to achieve a truly fulfilled outcome.

Through reading chapter four, it now becomes more evident that the pasts of the characters in the story are not pasts in a personal sense. They are pasts which seem incomplete, not whole in tsenseese in which they fit and describe one single character aleadaed that single character to their present situation. They appear to unfold more as pieces of a much larger whole, rather than whole in themselves. These pasts can only make sense and can only truly fit the characters to which they belong when they are interconnected with those pats of other characters. This can, without a doubt, be in direct correlation with the characters' present as well as their futures (since the present and future are merely pasts of those future's future, other, further futures). These major characters' lives as a whole-each of their pasts, present situations, and futures-are interconnected and as a whole are dependent each otherher.

posted by NCHS AP English Language III @ 2:01 PM