Chapter 10: Rebecca Hall
This is me taking a stab at how I interpret Chapter 10:
Faulkner is infamous for employing difficult literary devices in order to get his point across, such as grammatically incorrect sentences, liberal oxymorons and incongruous words.
In Chapter 10, Faulkner uses the "stream of consciousness" technique, allowing us into Christmas' innermost thoughts while purposefully neglecting to rearrange them in logical order. Irving Howe sums Faulkner’s approach up nicely: “In his densest paragraphs, he often lets his characters fall into reveries in which they perceive more deeply than their conscious minds possibly could.”
In order to so show us Joe Christmas’ semi-conscious mind at work after awaking on Bobbie’s floor, Faulkner incorporates snatches of partly audible conversation between Bobbie’s relatives that swim throughout his head, blurring distinctions between past, present and future.
Two years are covered rapidly in this novel and we discover that Joe has accomplished little, simply wandering the country in widening circles. The circle is a recurring symbol in Light in August; recall the circle of the urn Faulkner relates to Lena Grove.
Joe carries with him his anger towards the dietician, continuously unaware of who he really. He admits to each he sleeps his ethnicity in an attempt not to pay, and when one reacts by simply not reacting, he becomes violent. Joe Christmas is a Negro, this is all he is sure of and by denying him some sort of reaction the undermines his importance as a person. Joe Christmas simply is, though sometimes just being isn’t enough.
By Rebecca Hall
http://www.hotchkiss.k12.co.us/HHS/nobelnov/faulkner.htm
Chapter 10 Analysis- EMily Rew
In Chapter 10 Faulkner uses a literary technique called "stream of conciousness" to convey the thoughts that Joe Christmas continually experiences. He links the continuing experiences and moments of Joe's concsience into one long stream of thoughts and italicizes the continuos thought to show the reader when he is using it. This happens after Joe has been beat up and is lying on the floor. When someone has been knocked out and they wake up their mind is kind of distraught and they mix the outside senses with the inner thoughts that they are thinking. The conversation of Bobbie and her friends kind of stream together into one long sentence because Joe is recieving all this outside information combined with his physical condition like his throbbing head and it in some way distorts how his mind is interpreting it. Also the stream of conciousness is used when the image of the "road that goes on for 15 years" is used. This 15 year road is a metaphor for Joe Christmas' life, and he describes it as all the streets he has ever known and all the places he has been that run together into one long stream. This is because the experiences that Joe has in each city are one in the same to him. He eats the food out of tin dishes and "beds" with the women in each town telling them he is a "nigger." To Joe this changing of cities with the same continual experiences is just a way of finding his own identity. I liek how Faulkner uses this stream of conciousness in Chapter 10 and I can really understand how Joe Christmas must feel when he wakes up and has all these different thoughts coming into his brain and mixing around as if hsi mind is trying to make some logical order of them. All hsi past memories also come into mind like when he is smelling the food dishes. The past repressed memories come into his conscious mind and mix around with the current thoughts coming into hid mind. This helps to truly understand the thought processes of a character and helps the reader understand the current experiences of Joe.
Emily REw
Stream of Consciousness Ch 10
The stream of thought in literature is "technique that records the multifarious thoughts and feelings of a character without regard to logical argument or narrative sequenc." It reflects all the forces that are influencing the character's thought process at the given moment. http://www.bartleby.com/65/st/streamco.html The main storyline is periodically interrupted by Joe's unending stream of thought. Joe goes into the whorehouse consciously and with one last shred of hope that Bobbie will go with him but she takes that hope away from him and abandons him. He is left alone, physically and mentally beaten by the people protecting Bobbie. He lays on the bed watching them leave by the "final feet, the final door." Joe stops trying to amend his view of women permanently and is now completely alone, ending this chapter in his life. All his actions now are controlled by his past experiences, driven by his rejection by women and negative exposure to sex and punishment. His thought process is one long runon and he does not analyze the current situation, but rather reacts subconsciously to whatever his mind deems a threat. This stream of thought narrates the novel now, showing that Joe is no longer making his own decisions, and his life is dictated by his collection of memories.
Alissa Davis
Lindsay Miller- stream of consciousness + ch. 10
** Stream of consciousness format is when the author writes the main character's thoughts in just a rush of thought. Every little detail of what they are thinking is written and it is very random. They maybe thinking of the main story line but then suddenly switch to a memory or sudden action happening in the present. This format is often used to portray innocence, as a child's thoughts are often playful and fleeting. It may also be used for recurring memories that impact the story plot because in stream of consciousness, one's flashbacks of memory would come to mind most often.
** In Chapter 10, one finds Joe Christmas striking out on his own. He seems to be walking everywhere, loking for a place to stay, gain employment and food. He is just a fleeting passersby in every town and his memories are besieging him, enhanced by the stream of consciousness format used in this chapter. Eventually he arrives upon the home of Joanna Burden, and the past story line rushes up to meet the present plot with the conclusion of this chapter. Joe is realizing just what happened and how he is now on his own with little to no money, beaten up and hungry. Therefore, Joe is fully coming to terms with his present state of mind as well.
~LINDSAY MILLER
Merry (joe) Christmas!
So a basic synopsis of all the main events in chapter 10:
- Bobbie's family does not take Joe's money, only because Bobbie's 'mother' doesn't let them.
- Joe finds a bottle of something alcoholic, and then drinks the whole thing, which makes him drunk.
- He wanders around, having sex with random women and using his money which he had stolen so he could marry Bobby.
- This is ironic because he had saved it up for marriage, and instead uses it for having sex with random women.
- Tells all the women that he is black just to see their reaction .
- He starts to think of himself only as black.
- He gets angry at this woman who doesn't care that he is black.
- Then he goes and lives in a community of black people and marries a black woman.
- He's trying to become as black as he can.
- Then he leaves his wife, and goes to a town in Mississippi.
- He meets a random black boy and enquires about Joanna Burden's house.
- The kid says that no one would have a reason to harm her because she doesn't harm anybody.
- This catches Joe's interest.
- Joanna's first words to him involve food (food seems to be his connection with women).
Joe is trying to completely change from the person he was before. Mr. McEachern tried to make him a perfect white protestant, and so now he chooses to be black and sleeps with random women. He chooses to be black, even though he could pass for a white man, and tries to integrate himself with the black community because he ostracized himself from the white people.
Stream of consciousness is a technique which tells the reader what the character is thinking and feeling regardless of if it makes sense, or is chronological. For Joe Christmas, this is very relevant. His thoughts are often foreign to the common way of thinking, and so far the chronology has been skewed.
-Ellen, Melissa, Anh, Kelly (is dumb)
Light in August by Libby Brett Mary Elaine
stream of conciousness writing- off the top of your head, free ideas, "to represent the mind at work," rambling
A Concrete Example from within the text:
'Which means either fortyone or fortynine, from the way she said it,' he thought
Joe Christmas and Miss Burden have a rather unusual relationship however not so different from the past relations Joe has grwon to accept. Joe comes in and out of the house throughout the day and creeps into her bedroom at night where she lies there waiting for him. Miss Burden represents male qualities that frighten Joe. A major recap of Joe's childhood is when he smashes dishes on the floor for the food placed in front of him just like he did when he was younger inspite of the hopsitality displayed by his foster mother, Mrs. McEachern. Despite of Joe and Miss Burdens distant relationship, deep pasts of Miss Burden are revealed while the general past of Joe is as well. Although Joe and Mr. McEachern are not blood related, Joe soon turns out to be like his foster father, through perhaps, enviornment. Key points throughout the chapter are exposed through trailing of thought, stream of conciousness. In a sense. stream of conciousness helps the reader to view things not obvious from a third person limited point of view. The reader is aware of the how firghtened Joe is to recieve love from Mrs. McEachern and his feeling of inability to return that love. The racial struggle continues to be revealed and his ongoing struggle of trying to find his identity. Stream of conciousness are the exact words that Joe thinks and requires little interpretation of what he meant other than the deciphering of exactly how his words fit in with the situation.
Written by: libby, mary elaine, and brett
Stream of Consciousness
Stream of Consciousness Writing is "A literary technique that presents the thoughts and feelings of a character as they occur". In Light in August, William Faulkner presents these thoughts and feelings, especially those of Joe Christmas. Joe, being the central character in Chapter 10, has all of his thoughts pretty much narrating the novel. These thoughts and streaming commentary (as well as what Joe hears other people saying) depict the events in this chapter, such as the beating he receives from Bobbie's friends, and what they are doing to get away. The primary method of narration is this stream of consciousness, which gives an insight into what is happening, not only externally, but internally in the characters. This "stream" is literally a stream. There is no distinction between thoughts, no structure in writing, and his thoughts run on and on. In this way, Joe's "consciousness" is almost like an unconsciousness. He doesn't grasp any concept of his thoughts, they just run on and on almost uncontrollably.
CAILIN LOYD
LISA ELIZONDO
MIKE CECERO
