AMST 246: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner
Lecture 25 - Faulkner's Light in August, Part IV. Professor Wai Chee Dimock concludes her discussion of Light in August and the semester by mapping Faulkner's theology of Calvinist predestination onto race. Using Nella Larsen's novel Passing as an intertext, she shows how Joe Christmas's decision to self-blacken expresses his tragic sense of being predestined, of always "coming second." Moving away from tragedy, Dimock reads Hightower's delivery of Lena's baby as inhabiting a liminal space between tragedy and comedy, as Faulkner gives Hightower a second chance at meaningful communal agency. She finishes by reading Lena Grove and Byron Bunch's courtship as the comic end of Light in August. (from oyc.yale.edu)
| Lecture 25 - Faulkner's Light in August, Part IV |
| Time | Lecture Chapters |
| [00:00:00] | 1. "Passing" in Light in August |
| [00:06:12] | 2. Joe Christmas's Redoubled Double-Consciousness |
| [00:10:01] | 3. The Symbolic Pattern of Lighting a Match |
| [00:18:07] | 4. The Racialized Predestination of Joe Christmas |
| [00:22:52] | 5. Joe Christmas's Lack of Agency |
| [00:29:43] | 6. Hightower as the Midpoint Between Joe Christmas and Lena Grove |
| [00:33:28] | 7. A Second Chance for Hightower |
| [00:39:38] | 8. The Wisdom of Crowds |
| [00:43:52] | 9. Multitude: Faulkner's Kindness of Strangers |
| [00:46:23] | 10. Faulkner on Courtship and Marriage |
| References |
| Lecture 25 - Faulkner's Light in August, Part IV Instructor: Professor Wai Chee Dimock. Credit List [PDF]. Transcript [html]. Audio [mp3]. Download Video [mov]. |
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