Light in August, Ch. 13-14

1. catafalque (page 294): an ornamental structure sometimes used in funerals for the lying state of the body

2. The people of the town of Jefferson gather around Joanna Burden's burning home as the sheriff brings her dead body out of the home. The sheriff interrogates a black man about the two most recent occupants of the cabin, the sheriff beats him with a belt until he says that two white men were living there, soon to be identified as Joe Brown and Joe Christmas. Burden's nephew offers a reward for the capture of the killer, and Joe Brown steps forward saying that Joe Christmas was the killer. At that, the sheriff sends out a search party, but they have no luck finding Christmas. Meanwhile, Byron and Hightower are discussing Lena's situation. Byron wants Lena out of the boarding house, although Hightower thinks she should stay. Lena wants to visit the cabin that Joe Brown has been staying at, and Byron plans to tell Brown that Lena is in town hoping that this will cause him to flee from Jefferson. Lena then stays in the cabin because she believes that it is the home that was promised to her for their family. The sheriff decides that she is causing no harm and will be allowed to stay there. The sheriff was told that Joe went crazy at a black church nearby, considering he attacked one of the elders and when his grandson tried to get back at Joe, he knocked him out and again went on the run. He is completely disoriented because he is starving and only sleeping where he can. He only vaguely remembers a black family feeding him a meal before a wagon stops and takes him to Mottstown.

3. I find it very interesting that Lena and Joe Christmas never meet throughout the novel, even though they are two of the main characters. For instance, the smoke rising from the Burden home signals Lena's arrival to Jefferson and Joe Christmas' departure. Later on Lena decides to stay in the cabin on the Burden property, only after Joe Christmas was forced to leave because he was wanted as a fugitive. Throughout the novel these two characters are kept completely seperate, but yet their stories are so intertwined. Then I started to think about why Faulkner would choose to do this. I believe that the two characters are each others opposites and that is why they cannot meet. Lena represents life, and nature and is accepted into the community almost right away whereas Joe Christmas represents death and has been struggling to fit in with society since he was born.

4. a) Does Lena really believe that the cabin is for her, and that Joe Brown really was raising money for the family, or does she know what is really going on and she just chooses to ignore it?

b) Why does Hightower want Byron to tell Brown that Lena is in Jefferson?

c) If Hightower is so isolated from the community then why is he involving himself in the affairs of Lena and Byron?