Light in August by William Faulkner and Fate Assignment

Light in August by William Faulkner and Fate - Assignment Example Light In August reveals the hopelessness that intertwines with the human condition. Joe Christmas and Lena Grove reveal as characters with fuzzy backgrounds. Their beginnings are despicable and this contributes towards their fate. Lena Grove falls in love with a man, who abandons her when she becomes pregnant. Lucas Burch seems like a mildly ambitious man whose direction in life is similarly blurry. In the same sense, Joe Christmas has a contemptible background that trails him towards his castration. The novel only mentions his adopted family and the unpleasant relationship that leads him towards murdering his foster father. The depiction of the term street shows how the characters’ attempts at solace ruins them. The street symbolizes the unending search for belonging and self-acceptance that Lena and Joe experiences. For instance, Christmas kills the man who adopted him thereby triggering abandonment by Bobbie Allen and the family (Faulkner 80). When Joe steps off the porch of his former house, he escapes into the streets for fifteen years. In a quest towards finding personal meaning, Joe participates in vain wanderings that reflect his restless nature. The streets possess the allure of potential places for quenching Joe’s inner turbulence. This, however, is a mirage that offers limited answers about his identity. Similarly, Lena possesses hope when she goes in the streets, but she encounters travails that almost break her. The story also entails the burdens of conflicting aspirations and identities that people hold. Although Joe is seemingly white, he has a strong feeling that he is an African American. This means he can neither identify himself as a white nor classify himself as an African American person. Miss Burden inherits the expectations of her family that borders on pride and luminous legacy. Miss Burden, therefore, commits herself to her heritage’s cause that concerns with racial equality and slave abolition. Her charity eventually leads her into romantically falling for Joe, as she tries helping him achieve a stable self-esteem.