Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary
devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Compound Words
Faulkner’s frequent use of compound words is emblematic
of his inventive use of language, his ability to push the boundaries
of articulation, and his willingness to bend and stretch diction
to suit his particular aesthetic needs. The use of this device suggests
that the reserve of existing English words, and the traditional
means of combining, linking, and employing them, are insufficient
to Faulkner’s exploration of the complex states of consciousness
and knowing.
Examples abound in the novel. Lena is described as “inwardlistening,”
while her pregnancy makes her “swolebellied.” Hightower’s wife is
deemed “quietlooking,” and his house becomes, after her death, “mansmelling,
manstale.” Faulkner employs these long neologisms—words of his own
invention—as a means of accessing or enacting elusive, complex,
or contradictory states that resist easy explication or are not
readily translated into the realm of the written word. The combinations
attempt to bridge the wide gulf between appearance and reality,
conscious and unconscious thought, and internal and external states
of being.
Fluid Time
Light in August is a complex mélange
of events told in a dynamic clash of flashbacks and present-tense
narration. The cyclical nature of Lena’s wanderings, first into
and then out of town, serve as bookends for the broad scope and
wide narrative net contained within. Along the way, Faulkner moves
his story forward and backward in time. Various occurrences overlap
and intersect; actions take place simultaneously in different parts
of Jefferson and are then reported or recounted by a chorus of competing
voices, each with its own subjective viewpoint. For example, the
murder of Miss Burden has already occurred by the time Lena arrives
at the planing mill in Chapter 1, but we
are not made privy to the details of the killing until the end of
Chapter 12. This structure
and approach underscore Faulkner’s notion that nothing happens in
isolation. Rather, the various events that the novel comprises,
whether past or present, are part of a far-reaching chain of causality
stretching back to the Civil War and beyond. By juxtaposing multiple
time periods and points of view, Faulkner achieves a complexity
and resonance in step with the multidimensional world he creates.
Names and Naming
Faulkner’s deliberate selection of names for his characters
adds subtle resonance to the rich portrait of intersecting lives
that he presents. The reverend’s isolation from society and self-imposed
exile are signaled in his surname, Hightower. Miss Burden’s family
has suffered its share of personal tragedies and difficult burdens
in establishing its presence in the town of Jefferson. Lena Grove
is a child of nature, more at home among the trees and wild spaces
than in the civilizing confines of traditional, settled society.
For Joe Christmas, a name—and the personal history and sense of
self it provides—is a luxury he has never been afforded. His lack
of a birth name, and the lack of identity that implies, can be seen
as the overarching tragedy of his life and the driving force behind
the restless search that constantly goads him. Byron Bunch, on the
other hand, is the beneficiary of a mistaken identity, as Lena is
mistakenly led to believe that he is the Lucas Burch she seeks,
likely because the two men’s surnames differ by only a single letter.
Although he is not in fact Burch, it turns out the Byron is the
man Lena has been unknowingly seeking all along. At the conclusion
of the novel, her newborn son remains nameless, free of the strictures
and expectations the act of naming can engender.
