title: Reading Faulkner: Collected Stories (Reading Faulkner Series)
author:  Theresa M. Towner 
description: For readers and critics, a guide to the Nobel Laureate's short stories
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Cover](images/cover.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Light in August
  
  
    
  
  
  ### William Faulkner
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Joe Christmas does not know whether he is black or white. Faulkner makes of
  Joe’s tragedy a powerful indictment of racism; at the same time Joe's life is
  a study of the divided self and becomes a symbol of 20th century man.
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Light in August
  
  
  ## by William Faulkner
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 1
  
  
  
  
  
  Sitting beside the road, watching the wagon mount the hill toward her, Lena
  thinks, ‘I have come from Alabama: a fur piece. All the way from Alabama
  a-walking. A fur piece.’ Thinking _although I have not been quite a month on
  the road I am already in Mississippi, further from home than I have ever been
  before. I am now further from Doane’s Mill than I have been since I was twelve
  years old_.
  
  
  She had never even been to Doane’s Mill until after her father and mother
  died, though six or eight times a year she went to town on Saturday, in the
  wagon