本文是一篇英语毕业论文，本文运用亨利•列斐伏尔的空间批评理论探讨小说中的空间元素，分别从物理空间、心理空间和社会空间三个角度对美国南方人的生存困境进行分析和解读。
Chapter One Restricted Physical Space in Light in August
1.1 Biased and Discriminated:Orphanage in Memphis
As one of the sources where emotion comes,physical space may usually makechildhood experiences more profound through the filtration of people’s memories.Christmas spent a miserable and humiliating childhood in the orphanage.It was inthat place where he was first exposed to the idea about race,which set the tone forChristmas’later doubts about his own black identity.Although such life lasted foronly five years,the memories of this period convinced him until his death that he hadthe black blood lineage inside his body.The physical scene of the orphanage not onlyprovided a narrative space for the story,but also influenced Christmas’future development.In Christmas’memory,the orphanage was a place where“the bleakwalls,the bleak windows where in rain soot from the yearly adjacenting chimneysstreaked like black tears”(Faulkner,1972:102).It was also a place“enclosed by a tenfoot steel-and-wire fence like a penitentiary or a zoo,and a corridor in a big longgarbled cold echoing building of dark red brick”(Faulkner,1972:102).In Christmas’childhood memories,the environment was cold,gray and grim,and the only girl heloved was sent elsewhere later on.In addition,his racist grandfather Mr.Hines alwaysmade him sit away from the other children in the orphanage,and the other childrenwere somehow instigated by Mr.Hines to laugh at him and called him“nigger”.Inaddition,Christmas’memories of the female nutritionist at the age of five were alsorelated with the orphanage.Memories of food,sex and punishment in this spacesomewhat influenced his later antipathy towards food and women.After the scandalbeing discovered,the nutritionist’s angry scolding to the“nigger”Christmasundoubtedly added to his feelings of inferiority and guilt about his own race.In theorphanage,Christmas received nothing but indifference,hostility and injustice,soChristmas did not play with the other children either.Life in the orphanage was ahaunting memory for Christmas,and in such geographic space of uncaring anddiscrimination,he was filled with anxiety and restlessness,and since then he came tosee blackness as an integral part of himself.
1.2 Oppressed and Imprisoned:Christmas and McEachern’s House1.2.1 Abused in the Stable
Christmas’adoptive father Mr.McEachern was a Calvinist who viewed pleasureas a sin.He advocated self-control,and set harsh rules and regulations for others.Heexpressed his religious ideas to Christmas as both the adoptive father and thespokesman of God,making him an instrumental existence to satisfy his religiousdesires.Mr.McEachern was a man without compassion,and had always personifiedhimself as the representative of God,believing that his will was God’s will and that todisobey himself was to disobey God.In the stable,he punished the little Christmas byforce and ignored his thoughts.When Christmas failed to recite the catechism,McEachern whipped him ten times and“began to strike methodically,with slow anddeliberate force,still without heat or anger”(Faulkner,1972:126).However,Christmas did not pay any attention to the catechism,and when he was beaten,heonly confronted his stepfather in silence.Then“McEachern laid the book upon theledge and took up the strap.He struck ten times”(Faulkner,1972:127).Finally,“When McEachern took the book forcibly from his hands,the boy fell at full length tothe floor and did not move again”(Faulkner,1972:128).
Chapter Two Crumbling Psychological Space in Light inAugust
2.1 Joe Christmas’Disillusionment of Self Identity
The spiritual world of Christmas collapsed under the constant oppression of theoverwhelming external forces.The miserable memories in his childhood made himtyrannical and irritable,so he could not express or accept any tender emotionalfeelings properly from others.The racial discrimination he faced in his youth cast ashadow over his life.Joe Christmas didn’t have a name,and the reason why he wascalled Christmas was that he was found near the orphanage on Christmas Day.Thisnot only indicated that he had no name or parents,but also implied that anyone canarrange an identity for him.Although Christmas appeared to be a white man,he was still a spiritual vagabond.W.E.B.Du Bois,a famous leader of the black movement,once mentioned that the black people always felt the duality of having two soulsbecause they were both American and the black.Therefore,this led to a irreconcilablecontradiction which accurately showed the confusion and great psychological painthat the African Americans suffered in the pursuit of their identities,and this pain wasexactly what Christmas had encountered.His wandering movements and violenceagainst others were just the manifestation of searching and confirming his ownidentity.
allow others ignoring his existence and always tried to certify his being,butunfortunately he failed.After killing his adoptive father,Christmas stepped on anendless journey of escape,during which he had numerous relationships with differentwomen and also committed illegal bootlegging in alcohol.He indulged himself in thebistros where women mostly exchanged their bodies for a living to affirm himself as aperson alive.It was the place where the moral light did not shine,and staying at sucha place made him feel less alienated from others.However,the relationships betweenChristmas and those women constantly forced him to confront the ambiguities of hisethical identity.
2.2 Joanna Burden’s Encumbrance of Puritan Beliefs
Just like her name,Joanna Burden led a burdened life and also had a burdenedlove affair with Joe Christmas.When she was very young,her father instilled theconcept of“race”in her.Her father’s words and the achievements of her ancestorsmade deep influence and endless sufferings to her.Since then,the evil racism hascaused an indelible shadow to Joanna’s mind.Racial superiority and the“familymission”that her ancestors left imprisoned her for the rest of her life.Family tradition,Puritan morality and the lifelong mission to save black people crushed her so muchthat she could not breathe.However,Joanna had to assume this responsibility even ifshe did not want to,because it seemed that this was her inescapable fate as a whiteperson.After the Civil War when her grandfather was shot by a white racist,Joanna’sfather still chose to stay in the South to help the black.Under the influence of herancestors,she chose to dedicate her life to the great work of helping and promotingblack people,and remained steadiness even when she was spurned by white people.Her father set the course of Joanna’s life and locked her firmly into the career ofanti-racism.Thus under such influence,Joanna sacrificed her freedom and happinessto live a life of repression and distortion.As a“Yankee”,she lived in the South,butremained a person excluded from the public until her death.Since childhood,Joannahad followed the rituals of her family,isolating herself from the outside world andliving on the edge of society.After her father’s death,she had been living alone inBurden’s family mansion which was located in the middle of an isolated forest in Jefferson town.She often appeared in faded pajamas,holding a candle in solemncontempt in the darkened doorway.Joanna was middle-aged,but still remained avirgin.Her face was thin but she wore a pair of round-rimmed glasses,and alwaysremained a deadly look and gray hair.Her face was like a man and so was her voice.Even after 40 years of living in the South,she still retained the northern featuresspeaking like a Yankee and dressing more conservative and backward than the blackwomen.But in fact,she also had a yearning for the outside world and the pursuit ofbeauty,and she wanted to wear beautiful clothes like other young girls.However,shedid not contact with the outside world for a long time,and the clothes had beenoutdated,so she was unable to integrate into the society anymore.Because of this,shealso had never been able to marry and always lived alone in the big empty house.Unable to integrate into Jefferson town,she never interacted with the white people intown.Keeping her ancestral tradition in mind,she maintained close ties with the black:handling daily correspondence with black institutions and legal papers,providingadvice and guidance to blacks in business and law,and occasionally visiting blackschools by herself.In a southern society where women were generally dependent onmen for survival,Joanna was different.She was financially independent and managedher family’s finances alone,and also had a daring and manly personality.
Chapter Three Suffocating Social Space in Light in August .................... 34
3.1 Hypocritical Ethos in Jefferson ............. 34
3.2 Predicament of the Black ............................ 36
Conclusion ...................................... 45
Chapter Three Suffocating Social Space in Light in August
3.1 Hypocritical Ethos in Jefferson
Jefferson town was a representative stage of cultural conflict between two racesin the South,and it was also a political and ideological arena.Acting in such spacewere white southerners,white northerners,abolitionists,fanatical racists,the blacks,and so on.This was a southern American society with active public participation,strong public voices and extreme backwardness.It was clear that the spiritual pillar ofthis society was the traditional moral values and precepts of religious doctrine.Itrequired all who lived in it to act in accordance with its established norms,and anydeviation from such norms would lead to public comment or condemnation.Therefore,such a society was bound to be conservative and closed,and also became a place fullof social prejudice and racial discrimination.In such uncultured town,peopleassociate different skin colors with morality,and sometimes they even madeconclusions without considering the facts.From their perspective,the black peoplewere born with the stigma of sin and also the representation of evil.One of the mostobvious evidence was the scene after Ms.Burden’s death.They were the people“whobelieved aloud that it was an anonymous negro crime committed not by a negro butby Negro and who knew,believed,and hoped that she had been ravished too:at leastonce before her throat was cut and at least once afterward”(Faulkner,1972:240).Such unwarranted view was deeply rooted in the whites’minds and has become theprevailing social consensus.Biased groups tended to assign a clear structure to theirworld,even if that structure was narrow and inadequate,but whenever possible,theywould seize on that familiarity.In such distorted society,one only need let an idea or acasual word spread to make that view rooted into people’s minds and then vilifiedothers by fabricating something unreal.
Conclusion
The burden of racism and the destruction of humanity by Puritanism are alwayslingering in the hearts of the southern people.Through the analysis of cultural andsocial factors in the space,a tragic picture scroll of southern people’s life is presentedto us.Here,both discriminated groups and oppressed individuals imprisoned bysouthern religious doctrine have suffered and been influenced by times and ideologies,therefore no one can survive.
In the irregular changes of physical space,Christmas was constantly on the wayrunning.The endless path was as rambling tangled as his never-ending inner peace,and all memories related to the places he had experienced were extremely cold.Underthe influence of such indifferent environment,he became violent and fractious.Theshame of his black identity made him a strong sense of guilt and even hatred forhimself,so he could not integrate into the crowd or accept the love and company.
In the psychological space,the inner world of the three main characters werefilled with racial hatred and religious burden,and their lives were miserable andhopeless.In the ideology of white supremacy,Christmas had always been excluded bythe outside world.The white people were like the center of the society,whileChristmas was the man living on the edge.The more centered people continuouslycontrolled and exploited the edge,the more fierce the edge resisted.In such a harshenvironment with no answer to his search for identity,his spiritual world was boundto perish.Ms.Burden,distorted by the religious doctrine of the South,was unable tobalance the stereotypical ideologies with the contradiction of social regulations andinner thoughts in her self-struggle,and finally went into destruction in her spiritualbreakdown.Hightower,the pastor who was indulged in the illusory glory of the past,devoted his life to the religious convictions even though no one supported him.Fortunately,after the witness of the new birth of Lena’s child,he was finally able toaccept love and hope,and got the spiritual rebirth.
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