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
posted by Rebecca @ 12:28 PM
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