Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Light in August, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Race, Gender, and Transgression
Freedom, Discipline, and Violence
Names and Identity
Strangers, Outcasts, and Belonging
Haunting and the Past
Summary
Analysis
Christmas managed to escape from jail, but the hiding place he chose after getting out—Hightower’s house—was such a strange choice that the townspeople say that he might as well have committed suicide. The District Attorney, a Harvard graduate from an old slaveholding Jefferson family, is named Gavin Stevens. On Monday night, a college friend of Stevens who is now a professor at a nearby university arrives in Jefferson. He sees Stevens talking to Mr. Hines and Mrs. Hines. He hands Mrs. Hines train tickets while discussing funeral arrangements with her.
Stevens’s odd and sudden entrance into the narrative can be explained by the fact that he is yet another framing device. Through telling the story of what happened to Christmas to his professor friend, he also narrates it to the audience. As such, readers again receive a biased and limited view of the situation, and must make their own judgments about the “truth” of what happened.
Themes
After Mr. and Mrs. Hines get on the train, Stevens tells the professor (who is not named) the whole story. He speculates that Christmas sought shelter in Hightower’s house because of his grandmother. Mrs. Hines did not expect that she could stop Christmas dying, but she wanted him to die in a “decent,” legal way, rather than being lynched (which was what Mr. Hines wanted to do). Stevens then reflects that for the first time in her life, Mrs. Hines found someone—Hightower—to whom she could tell her story. He thinks that she probably told Christmas that “Hightower would save him” when she went to see him in jail.
It seems that, after having initially been opposed to the idea of helping Christmas, Hightower came around to it. This could be thanks to Mrs. Hines’s persuasion, or—more likely—it is the result of the surge of purpose Hightower experienced after helping Lena give birth to her baby. After so many years of being isolated and purposeless, Hightower remembered what it was like to feel connected and useful to others, and wanted to keep helping.
Themes
Stevens thinks Christmas believed Mrs. Hines, and that this inspired him to run. He miraculously managed to break free despite being handcuffed, but at that point he had done “too much running” in life. All his life, Christmas had been running from himself, from his own actions. Stevens characterizes all Christmas’s actions as being driven either by his “black blood” or his “white blood.” Stevens argues that it was Christmas’s white blood that sent him to Hightower’s house, and his black blood that led him to grab the pistol and point it at Hightower. Yet his black blood then “failed him.” Instead of killing the minister, he just struck him and then hid behind a table, where he was quickly shot to death.
Here readers receive the second part of the story begun by the man who ran from the church to see the sheriff. Thus the story of Christmas’s demise comes together like pieces of a puzzle. At the same time, it is clear from Stevens’s strange discussion of “white blood” and “black blood” that his account is skewed by bias.
Themes
The narrator then shifts to describe a young man living in Jefferson named Percy Grimm. He was born just too late to fight in the First World War, which he deeply resented. The first fight Grimm ever got into was with a soldier who had served in the war, and who said that the US was foolish to get involved and ally with France. Grimm was beaten by the man, but was proud of the scars he had gained. Thanks to the new civilian military act, Grimm is able to fulfil his dream of wearing a military uniform. He is a fiercely patriotic man, a white supremacist with fanatical reverence for the American military. On every national holiday, Grimm proudly strides about town in his uniform.
The sudden shift to focus on Percy Grimm is another bewildering moment, particularly considering that his fervent patriotism and militarism set him apart from the other characters in the novel. However, note that the legacy of war has been one of the most important themes of the book, even if it has been more in the background than the foreground. Both WWI and the Civil War continue to have a great impact on Jefferson.
Themes
Get the entire Light in August LitChart as a printable PDF.
By the time Christmas is brought back to Jefferson from Mottstown, Grimm has already been to see the commander of the local Post of the American Legion. He tells the commander that “it is the right of no civilian to sentence a man to death,” and that as soldiers they must enforce this rule. The commander is skeptical, but Grimm is adamant, saying that as soldiers they must be the “first to state where we stand.” The commander indicates that he won’t stop Grimm, but that Grimm mustn’t use his name. On the Saturday before Christmas’s death, Grimm goes through Jefferson gathering men who have served in the military and “divided them into squads.” He advises all of them to carry a gun.
Grimm wants to use his status as a “soldier” to commit a form of vigilante justice, which in the South during this era usually meant lynching. The strange logic he uses to justify this involves arguing that “civilians”—including the jury legally appointed to evaluate Christmas’s guilt—do not have the right to execute people, only soldiers do. While on one level an excuse for megalomania, Grimm’s reasoning shows how some people in the South lived as if they were still in a state of war, which in turn highlights the long afterlife of the Civil War.
Themes
Grimm goes to see the sheriff to ask for permission for the group of men to station themselves in the town square. The sheriff immediately refuses, telling Grimm that he and his men should not carry their guns around town, and Grimm pretends to accept this answer. However, later that night the sheriff arrives in the town square to find the group of men standing outside the courthouse and jail. The sheriff approaches Grimm and reluctantly says that Grimm can be his “special deputy,” but that he is not permitted to show his gun to anyone. As the night goes on, most of Grimm’s men end up going home.
As this passage shows, vigilante “justice” was a big problem in the South at the time. The power of people like Grimm and the mobs they lead means that even the sheriff has to capitulate to Grimm’s desires, naming him “special deputy” when Grimm has done nothing to warrant this title.
Themes
Sunday is a calm, quiet day. Everyone knows that the Grand Jury will meet tomorrow, and the secrecy implied by the words “Grand Jury” makes Grimm’s men even more convinced of their own “makebelieve." Most of the townspeople have quickly accepted the presence of Grimm and his men and even started to see Grimm as a kind of authority, and Grimm’s men have been agitated to the point that “they might die for him, if the occasion rose.” They come to believe that it is Grimm who is really in charge, not the sheriff
The story of Grimm and his made-up army shows how power and authority are inventions that only work because people choose to believe in them. It is remarkable—and frightening—how quickly Grimm positions himself as a rightful leader, and how quickly the townspeople accept him in this role.
Themes
On Monday, the day of the Grand Jury, Grimm’s men wear their uniforms. The townspeople see Grimm walk past with his gun and comment that the sheriff has “no say” in what will happen that day. Grimm is inside the courthouse when he hears Burford fire his gun. While being walked across the town square, Christmas has fled, and chaos ensues. Grimm demands that the courthouse aide turn on the fire alarm in order to alert everyone that something has happened. He then steals a bicycle and zooms off, overtaking Burford. and manages to follow Christmas to a cluster of “negro cabins.” Christmas, who is holding a gun, sees that Grimm has found him and manages to run off.
Now all the pieces of the puzzle come together to construct a depiction of Christmas’s death. The fact that Christmas managed to flee in the first place is incredible considering how many people in Jefferson were aware of his detainment (including the makeshift army unit Grimm has assembled). As readers know, however, Christmas’s many years of escaping punishment will soon end.
Themes
Now on foot, Grimm follows Christmas to Hightower’s house, now accompanied by some of his men. When Grimm demands that Hightower reveal which room Christmas is in, Hightower begins to say that he was with Christmas on the night of the murder and that he is thus not guilty. Grimm is appalled by this. As if by intuition, he runs into another room and immediately begins shooting. Although he hits Christmas, he does not kill him; he then uses a butcher knife to castrate Christmas. Seeing this, one of Grimm’s men vomits. At this point the life finally leaves Christmas’s body.
The failure of Hightower’s last-minute decision to provide an alibi for Christmas suggests that if Hightower had been less weak-willed and originally agreed to do it, things might have turned out differently. Meanwhile, Grimm’s horrific lynching of Christmas is sadly reflective of many real incidents that occurred in towns like Jefferson during this period.
Themes
