Names are very important in Light in August. More than simply a way of identifying a person, they convey information about that person’s characteristics. This suggests that people’s personalities are predetermined from the moment that they are given their name (or inherit it, in the case of surnames). At the same time, many of the characters in the novel change their names, usually as a way to reinvent themselves and escape their pasts. In a way, this conflicts with the idea that names reveal the qualities of a person, because if names carry this kind of meaning, then it is not possible to simply shrug them off and assume a different identity. As a result, names become a way in which the novel shows that attempts to escape one’s past tend to be doomed. Changing one’s identity is not as easy as changing one’s name.
The novel is very explicit about the idea that names betray a person’s characteristics and fate. This is first expressed via the character of Byron Bunch: “And that was the first time Byron remembered that he had ever thought how a man’s name, which is supposed to be just the sound for who he is, can be somehow an augur of what he will do, if other men can only read the meaning in time.” As this quotation indicates, names give an indication of a person’s destiny, but not in a way that is necessarily obvious. It can be a challenge to “read the meaning” of a name.
Throughout the novel, the characters repeatedly notice something unusual or noteworthy about a person’s name without being able to specifically figure out what this means. For example, Byron observes to Lena that Joe Brown “does seem a little kind of too quick and too easy for a natural name, somehow.” This suggests that Byron has (correctly) observed that Joe Brown is not Joe’s given name. However, Byron does not actually come to this conclusion, instead simply remarking that the name is odd. Similarly, many of the characters remark that Joe Christmas’s surname is strange, especially for a white man. However, none of them take the (again, correct) next step of concluding that Joe might in fact not be white at all.
In other cases, the characters fail to notice the meaning of names entirely. This is particularly true when it comes to the way in which names link two people together. The three main pairs of people linked by their names are Joe Christmas and Joe Brown, Joe Christmas and Joanna Burden, and Joe Brown/Lucas Burch and Byron Bunch. In each of these pairs, the characters are closely associated with one another in some way, while at the same time being opposites, foils, or rivals. The linking of these names highlights an uncomfortable and unsustainable connection between each person, wherein only one can survive the pair. However, the characters fail to properly notice and understand this phenomenon, and thus the cycle of one pair beating or destroying the other repeats itself.
Through its depiction of many characters who change their names, the novel questions whether it is actually possible to change one’s identity and escape one’s past. In many cases, characters change their names in order to absolve themselves of past transgressions or to commit transgressions without being caught. This is true of Lucas Burch/Joe Brown, who changes his name after abandoning Lena and his unborn child, and also of Gail Hightower’s wife and her lover, who register “as man and wife, under a fictitious name” in order to avoid being caught as adulterers.
Another motivation for changing one’s name can be an attempt to rebel against one’s past or family. For example, Joe Christmas changes his name from McEachern in order to sever all ties with his adoptive family. Meanwhile, Joanna’s grandfather, Calvin Burden, changed his surname from “Burrington” because he ran away from home before he learned to spell Burrington and so chose something simpler. This change of name thus symbolizes Calvin’s rebellion and his decision (which is highly similar to Joe’s) to reject his family background. His choice of “Burden” is also telling, as he goes on to be an abolitionist troublemaker who is indeed seen as a “burden” by the white Southerners he lives among. This indicates that changing one’s name can be a way of having agency over one’s fate. However, it is unclear whether this agency was intentional, as (at least according to the story Joanna tells) the reason Calvin chose “Burden” was because it was a simplification of “Burrington.”
Overall, names are an important way in which the novel explores themes of fate, identity, and the inescapability of the past. The frequency with which characters change their names shows that the desire to change one’s identity and escape one’s past is highly common. And while changing one’s name is not a surefire way to reinvent oneself, the limitations of people’s ability to properly read the meaning of names does allow certain characters to escape into anonymity and commit transgressions without being caught.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Names and Identity ThemeTracker
Names and Identity Quotes in Light in August
“His name is Christmas,” he said.
“His name is what?” one said.
“Christmas.”
“Is he a foreigner?”
“Did you ever hear of a white man named Christmas?” the foreman said.
“I never heard of nobody a-tall named it,” the other said.
And that was the first time Byron remembered that he had ever thought how a man’s name, which is supposed to be just the sound for who he is, can be somehow an augur of what he will do, if other men can only read the meaning in time.
Yes, ma’am. Joe Brown. But I reckon that may be his right name. Because when you think of a fellow named Joe Brown, you think of a bigmouthed fellow that’s always laughing and talking loud. And so I reckon that is his right name, even if Joe Brown does seem a little kind of too quick and too easy for a natural name, somehow.
‘That’s right,’ he says. ‘Go on. Accuse me. Accuse the white man that’s trying to help you with what he knows. Accuse the white man and let the nigger go free. Accuse the white and let the nigger run.’
[…]
‘The folks in this town is so smart. Fooled for three years. Calling him a foreigner for three years, when soon as I watched him three days I knew he wasn’t no more a foreigner than I am. I knew before he even told me himself.’
“Christmas. A heathenish name. Sacrilege. I will change that.”
“That will be your legal right,” the matron said. “We are not interested in what they are called, but in how they are treated.”
But the stranger was not listening to anyone anymore than he was talking to anyone. “From now on his name will be McEachern.”
“That will be suitable,” the matron said. “To give him your name.”
“He will eat my bread and he will observe my religion,” the stranger said. “Why should he not bear my name?”
The child was not listening. He was not bothered. He did not especially care, anymore than if the man had said the day was hot when it was not hot. He didn’t even bother to say to himself My name aint McEachern. My name is Christmas There was no need to bother about that yet. There was plenty of time.
“Why not, indeed?” the matron said.
And always, sooner or later, the street ran through cities, through an identical and well nigh interchangeable section of cities without remembered names, where beneath the dark and equivocal and symbolical archways of midnight he bedded with the women and paid them when he had the money, and when he did not have it he bedded anyway and then told them that he was a negro. For a while it worked; that was while he was still in the south. It was quite simple, quite easy. Usually all he risked was a cursing from the woman and the matron of the house, though now and then he was beaten unconscious by other patrons, to waken later in the street or in the jail.
Halliday saw him and ran up and grabbed him and said, ‘Aint your name Christmas?’ and the nigger said that it was. He never denied it. He never did anything. He never acted like either a nigger or a white man. That was it. That was what made the folks so mad. For him to be a murderer and all dressed up and walking the town like he dared them to touch him, when he ought to have been skulking and hiding in the woods, muddy and dirty and running. It was like he never even knew he was a murderer, let alone a nigger too.
