Faulkner's Motif of Food in Light in August

Its title notwithstanding, Light in August, may well be the darkest of Faulkner's novels. Despite the light that Lena Grove radiates and the life she instills in both her child and Byron Bunch, the pervasive concern of the novel is the tragic conversion of the living into the dead. In the host of deathly characters that populate the novel, Faulkner repeatedly delineates the psychology of this macabre transformation. Despite their superficial differences, these characters all epitomize America's puritanical culture that perversely pursues its own death, all the while ironically modelling its actions on a Christianity that preaches the miracle of transforming death into life.

Such terms of analysis are almost inevitably included in the myriad of studies that have appeared over the years puzzling the complexities of this—the most teeming, almost bursting, of Faulkner's major novels. In contrast, the motif of food that also pervades the novel, is usually passingly mentioned in connection with some larger theme, such as violence (the throwing of food), rejection or racism (much of the food is prepared by or characteristic of blacks). Only a few critics make a more essential connection that parallels Joe Christmas' attitude toward women, sex, and food.1 But such studies fail to understand the centrality of food to this trinity of needs.

The psychoanalytic approach that I intend to adopt toward the motif of food and, through it, towards the novel as a whole,