Style and Structure
Due to its naturalistic, violent subject matter and obsession with the ghosts of the past, Light in August is characterized as a Southern gothic novel, a genre also exemplified by the works of Faulkner's contemporary Carson McCullers, and by later Southern writers like Flannery O'Connor, Truman Capote, and Toni Morrison. However, critics like Diane Roberts and David R. Jarraway view Faulkner's use of Southern gothic genre tropes, such as the dilapidated plantation house and the focus on mystery and horror, as self-conscious modernist commentary on man's "warped relationship with the past" and the impossibility of determining true identity.
According to Daniel Joseph Singal, Faulkner's literary style gradually developed from 19th century Victorian to modernist, with Light in August more firmly grounded in the tradition of the latter. The novel is characteristic of the modernist fascination with polarities—light and dark, good and evil—the burden of history on the present, and the splintering of personal identity. The plot is also divided into dual currents, one focusing on Lena Grove and the other on Joe Christmas, a technique that Faulkner continued to use in other works. The narrative is not structured in any particular order, as it is often interrupted by lengthy flashbacks and constantly shifts from one character to another. This lack of organization and narrative continuity was viewed negatively by some critics. As in his other novels, Faulkner employs elements of oral storytelling, allowing different characters to lend voice to the narrative in their own distinct Southern idiom. Unlike some of the other Yoknapatawpha County novels, notably The Sound and the Fury, Light in August does not rely solely on stream-of-consciousness narration, but also incorporates dialog and an omniscient third-person narrator that develop the story.
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