Race, Gender, and Transgression Theme Analysis

Light in August is set in the fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi, at the beginning of the Jim Crow era, and chronicles white people’s intense anxiety about preserving white supremacy during this period of transition. Many of the characters in the novel are desperate to uphold race as a fixed and essential quality, yet other characters, like Joe Christmas—who believes he has black ancestry yet passes as white—show that race is actually an arbitrary invention. Meanwhile, the meaning of gender is also in flux during this period, and many of the characters betray a similar hysteria about changing gender roles, particularly female sexuality. Indeed, the novel shows that anxieties about racial and gender transgression are inherently intertwined, as racism is deeply rooted in fears about gender and sexuality—particularly the fear of white women having sex with black men.

The novel ultimately shows that the attempt to uphold strict gender/racial roles and categories is doomed because these categories are arbitrary inventions, which makes it inevitable that real people will transgress them. Indeed, insisting on policing gender and racial categories will only lead to more chaos and brutality, as is shown by the many gruesome murders and other acts of violence that take place in the novel. The novel indicates that it is better to accept and forgive supposed transgressions, as Byron Bunch does at the end of the narrative when he takes care of Lena and her baby despite the fact that the child is not his.

Of the many acts of transgression in the novel, the sexual relationship between Joanna and Joe is the most scandalous, in part because it involves both racial and gender transgression. Although in Jefferson Joe lives as a white man, he believes that he has black ancestry and at other points in his life has identified as black and lived within black communities. This racial flexibility is itself very scandalous, and makes his relationship with Joanna, who is white, horrifying to a community in which sexual relations between black men and white women are the greatest taboo.

Through Joanna and Joe’s relationship, the novel shows that race and gender/sexual categories—and thus race and gender/sexual transgression—are intimately intertwined. After the two start sleeping together, Joe observes: “My God… it was like I was the woman and she was the man.” This gender reversal mimics the inversion of racial identities the pair represent. Joe may be a black man yet passes as white, whereas Joanna is a white woman whose sympathy toward black people and family history of abolitionism lead others to call her a “N_____ lover.”

Joanna and Joe’s relationship indicates that acts of sexual transgression lead to more forms of transgression. Not only are the couple engaged in a racially/sexually scandalous relationship, but Joe is also involved in an illegal bootlegging operation with Joe Brown, while the two live inside a cabin on Joanna’s property. Each of these acts violates the norms of the society in which they live. The fact that Joanna and Joe’s relationship eventually leads to Joe murdering Joanna—after she tries to force him to pray with her—again confirms the notion that acts of racial/gender transgression lead to violation of other social norms and rules. It also seems to confirm the racist view espoused at the time that black men posed a violent threat to white women.

At the same time, one can also interpret the novel as showing that the existence of strict racial and gender categories in the first place makes transgression (and violence) inevitable. Contrary to the beliefs of the book’s racist characters, Joe does not murder Joanna because he is black (indeed, it is never confirmed that he even has black ancestry, and throughout most of the novel he lives as a white man). Instead, he kills her due to the trauma and resentment he has incurred from living in such a strict, repressive society, which has left him feeling frustrated, isolated, and vengeful.

The storyline about Lena’s baby further shows that rigid social categories inevitably lead to transgression. In the world of the novel, it is seen as shameful for a woman to have a child alone—even if it is because, as in Lena’s case, the child’s father has abandoned her. Armistad articulates the warped thinking behind this prejudice when he observes that women who have children out of wedlock are trying to leave the “woman race” and become part of the “man race.” This shows that having a child alone is perceived as an act of gender transgression akin to acts of racial transgression such as passing or interracial sex.

Yet the book makes it painfully clear that Lena is not responsible for this act of “transgression,” as she was abandoned by the father of her child (Lucas Burch, who later renames himself Joe Brown). Furthermore, when Lucas leaves, Lena is left with no opportunities to redeem herself. Her decision to seek Lucas out on foot is seen as strange and scandalous. Lena is stuck in an impossible situation: abandoned by Lucas, she is condemned both for having a child alone and for trying to find her child’s father.

In this sense, the book emphasizes that rigid social categories of race and gender make transgression inevitable. It also shows that such acts of transgression tend to accumulate, often culminating in violence and chaos. Attempting to police race and gender categories as well as other social norms will lead to a society that is more broken and violent, not less. Instead, it is better not to enforce such categories and norms so rigidly, as Byron Bunch does when he accepts and cares for Lena despite her being pregnant with the child of another man.