Joe Christmas, a character from William Faulkner's "Light in August", has never really belonged. Throughout the novel, Christmas has struggled to find his identity. Because Christmas is bi-racial, he never seems to fit in with either the white or black community. In chapter 5, Christmas is running through a white neighborhood, "He stopped here, panting, glaring, his heart thudding as if it could not or would not yet believe that the air now was the cold hard air of white people" (115).
Christmas feels left out not only in the white community but in black communities as well. "He was walking directly towards them, walking fast. They had seen him and they gave to one side of the road, the voices ceasing.... In a single movement and as though at a spoken command the women faded back and were going around him, giving him a wide berth" (117). Christmas struggles to regain his identity. Since the beginning of Joe Christmas's life, he has always seemed to be an outcast searching for who he is.
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