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Light in August

William Faulkner

Study Guide

Summary
- Plot Overview
Characters
Main Ideas
- Themes
- Motifs
- Symbols
- Key Facts
Quotes
- Important Quotations Explained
Further Study
- Context
- Full Book Quiz
- Study Questions
- Suggestions for Further Reading
Writing Help

Further Study

Full Book Quiz

Further Study Full Book Quiz

1. Why does Lena leave her brother’s house?

She is wanted for petty theft.
She is searching for her baby’s father.
She is searching for her birth father.
She does not get along with his wife.

2. Who first sees Lena along the road in the novel?

Armstid
Joe Christmas
Hightower
Bobbie Allen

3. How does Reverend Hightower’s wife die?

In a fire
In an automobile accident
In a fall from a hotel window
Of a drug overdose

4. How do Joe Brown and Joe Christmas earn a living after quitting at the mill?

Tending to Miss Burden’s house and property
Robbing trucks along the road to Memphis
Making and selling liquor
As professional gamblers

5. What is revealed about Joe Christmas after the fire at the Burden house?

He is Miss Burden’s son
He was Miss Burden’s occasional lover
He is using an alias
He was orchestrating an insurance scam

6. What does young Joe Christmas steal from dietician’s room at the orphanage?

Money
Chocolate cake
The dietician’s hairbrush
Toothpaste

7. What does Joe Christmas do when he finds out that Bobbie Allen is a prostitute?

He runs away
He prays with her
He asks her to marry him
He beats her

8. What does Joe Christmas purchase with the money from selling the heifer his father gave him?

A suit
A train ticket to Memphis
A gun
A car

9. How does Joe Christmas kill his father at the school dance?

By shooting him
By strangling him
By smashing a chair over his head
By beating him to death

10. Where does Joe first meet Miss Burden?

In the town square of Jefferson
In her house, while he is stealing food from her kitchen
By the side of the road, where her wagon is stranded
At the diner in town

11. Where is Miss Burden’s family from?

Canada
New Hampshire
Alabama
Maryland

12. What is Miss Burden’s first name?

Joanna
Bobbie
Evangeline
Mildred

13. How does Miss Burden try to help Joe Christmas?

By asking him to move into the main house
By hiring him as her personal assistant
By trying to send him to college
By deeding all her property to him

14. Where does Lena decide to live?

With Reverend Hightower
At Mrs. Beard’s boardinghouse
In a tent with Byron
In Joe Brown’s cabin on the Burden property

15. Where is Joe Christmas captured?

In a cotton house
On the main street of Mottstown
On a train bound for Memphis
At a backwoods church

16. When is Mr. Hines is arrested?

After he beats up Joe Christmas’s biological father
After he strangles his daughter
After he pulls a gun on the members of an all-black church
After he tries to burn down an all-black church

17. Which of the following is true of Joe Christmas’s biological father?

He worked in a traveling circus
He was actually part Mexican
He abandoned the family shortly after Joe’s birth
He died in an accident at the rail yard before Joe was born

18. Who does the janitor at the orphanage turn out to be?

Joe’s father
Joe’s grandfather
Reverend Hightower
Miss Burden’s father

19. After Joe’s arrest, what does Byron ask Hightower to do?

Let the Hineses stay with him while they are in town
Resume the pulpit to try to sway public opinion
Convince Joe Brown to confess to the crime
Claim falsely that Joe was with him the night of the murder

20. After Lena gives birth, what does Hightower ask her to do?

Reject Byron’s attentions
Leave Jefferson
Give the child to an orphanage
Give the child to the Hineses to raise

21. What does Joe Brown do after his reunion with Lena?

Holds her and the baby hostage
Asks her to marry him
Runs away and escapes on a train
Confesses to Miss Burden’s murder

22. What happens after Joe Christmas escapes?

He is caught on the outskirts of Memphis
He is shot and killed in Reverend Hightower’s house
He is lynched by an angry mob of town residents
He returns to the cabin, where he holds Lena and her baby hostage

23. What does Percy Grimm do after he kills Joe Christmas?

Cries
Throws up
Drags Joe’s body through town
Castrates Joe with a knife

24. Why did Hightower want to come to Jefferson in the first place?

His wife’s family had roots there
It was the only community that would take a young preacher
His mother was born there
His grandfather was killed there during the war

25. What do Byron and Lena do at the novel’s conclusion?

Head for Tennessee in search of Joe Brown
Get married and take up residence at the Burden place
Give the baby to the Hineses for them to raise
Return to Lena’s family in Alabama

Previous section Context Next section Context Quick Quiz

Popular pages: Light in August

Character List CHARACTERS
Joe Christmas: Character Analysis CHARACTERS
Important Quotations Explained MAIN IDEAS
Themes MAIN IDEAS

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