Submitted by chlester0@gmail.com on Tue, 2014-06-17 17:13
This group represent the white customers of various unspecified brothels "in the (comparatively speaking) south" (225) who beat Christmas when, after "bedding" one of the prostitutes, he identifies himself as a Negro (224).
Submitted by chlester0@gmail.com on Tue, 2014-06-17 17:12
During his fifteen years on the road, Joe has sex with many prostitutes. In what the narrative calls "the (comparatively speaking) south," whenever he doesn't have money to pay them, he tells them afterward that he is "a negro" - a kind of race card that apparently puts the transaction so far outside the bounds that all Joe risks by asserting it is a cursing from "the woman and the matron of the house" (224).
Submitted by chlester0@gmail.com on Tue, 2014-06-17 17:09
Most of the time if Faulkner's narrative does not specify someone's race, it is safe to assume they are 'white,' and the majority of the characters in Light in August are 'white' too. But the "white people" this entry specifically refers to are the residents of Jefferson who live in the neighborhood next to the town's black district, whom Christmas sees during his walk on Friday evening.
Submitted by chlester0@gmail.com on Tue, 2014-06-17 17:06
When the novel describes Christmas walking in Jefferson around 9 p.m. it says that if he'd taken the same route at 7 p.m. he "would have passed people, white and black, going toward the square and the picture show" (i.e. the movies, 114). This is a rare instance in the fictions of people of both races doing the same thing - though of course there were separate "White" and "Colored" seating areas inside the theater - and it is also an indication of the role movies played in the life of the town.
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Tue, 2014-06-17 15:04
At the end of his affair with Bobbie Allen, Joe Christmas leaves his home and "entered the street which was to run for fifteen years" (223). In the course of his travels, "the thousand streets ran as one street" (223), which we have chosen to situate in the center of the United States as a kind of representative rather than exact Location for what happens to Joe during those years of his life.
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Tue, 2014-06-17 14:50
This is an aggregate Location. At the end of his affair with Bobbie Allen in Light in August, Joe Christmas leaves his home and "entered the street which was to run for fifteen years" (223). In the course of his travels, "the thousand streets ran as one street" (223), which we have chosen to plot on the "World" map (because although it seems Joe mostly travels around the U.S, he also gets into Mexico) but situated in the center of the United States as a kind of representative rather than exact Location for what happens to Joe during those years of his life.
Looking to hop on a train to escape from Lena and his newborn child, Lucas Burch heads for a particular spot: "the crest of a grade where the northbound freights slow to a terrific and crawling gait" (433). It is at this location that Bryon tries in vain to stop Burch from fleeing his responsibility.
In the various novels and stories. here are at least two different restaurants in Jefferson for the white people. This one has a long "frictionsmooth wooden counter" where Joe eats seated "on a backless stool," but all the text tells us about its location is that it is "on a side street" (113). Those two details, however - the long counter and the side-street location - suggest it may be the small restaurant that Flem Snopes acquires from V.K. Ratliff and uses to launch his climb up the town's social and economic ladders.
What the narrative calls "the homes of white people" (114) and "the houses of white people" (115) can be found in many different parts of Jefferson, but Joe Christmas' nighttime walk takes him through one specific section, between the Square and Freedman Town, identified this way. He notes the "chairs upon the lawn" and "verandas" where "white faces" can be seen (115). We are also assuming the the Sheriff's house is in this neighborhood; all we know about its location is that when Percy Grimm goes there it is somewhere north of the Square (454).
Though it's not said specifically in the text, it seems likely that when Percy Grimm seeks out the commander of the local American Legion, they talk at the commander's house.
