NCHS AP English Language

Time Light in August Ch4 BY CAILIN LOYD

The pasts of Joanna Burden, Joe Christmas and John Brown do not necesarily coincide until the murder of Joanna Burden, at the time when Lena arrives. While Christmas and Brown live on Burden's land, it was unusual to find Brown downstairs in her house with Joanna Burden's decapitated body upstairs. While in town people think Brown is the culprit, he blames the act on Christmas, but no one believes him until he describes Christmas as being "part-negro." This ties in Christmas's life to that of Burden's and Brown's. Past time can not be recovered but all of those characters pasts determine their present. All of the stories in Ch4 look to be seperate, when they are actually concurrent with each other. Faulker uses this tool to express the stories as if one is reflecting on the past in the present, even though the events occur in the present. Time is in the present, but the past plays a large role in determining that present. In Ch4, the entire chapter is a conversation, but uses events in the near past to create a present. Also the idea of what we think is the present comes into play. When we think of an event as being in the present, that even can only be in the present for around 1/5 of a second or however long we think about it in that present time. Faulkner uses that idea in expressing the story about Joanna BUrden in Ch4, by connecting the lives of 3 characters and Lena Groves arrival with the present event of Joanna Burden's murder.


BY CAILIN LOYD

posted by Lisa @ 8:52 AM