Joe Christmas

E380578

Joe Christmas is the tormented, racially ambiguous protagonist of William Faulkner’s novel "Light in August," whose life and violent fate unfold in the fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi.

All labels observed (1)

Label Occurrences
Joe Christmas canonical 2

How this entity was disambiguated

Statements (49)

Predicate Object
instanceOf fictional character
literary character
novel protagonist
adoptiveFather Simon McEachern
adoptiveMother Mrs. McEachern
appearsInWork Light in August
associatedWithGenre Southern Gothic
surface form: Southern Gothic literature

modernist literature
biologicalGrandfather Eupheus Hines
biologicalMother Millicent Hines
centralToThemeOf Light in August – identity
Light in August – race
Light in August
surface form: Light in August – religion

Light in August – violence
createdBy William Faulkner
deathCauseInFiction castration
shooting
deathLocationInFiction Jefferson, Mississippi NERFINISHED
fictionalResidence Jefferson, Mississippi NERFINISHED
fictionalUniverse Yoknapatawpha County
gender male
hasOccupationInFiction laborer
worker at a planing mill
hasThemeRelation Southern Gothic
racial identity
religious fanaticism
social exclusion
violence
hasTrait alienated
emotionally repressed
racially ambiguous
restless
rootless
tormented
violent
isKilledBy Percy Grimm
isPursuedBy Percy Grimm
kills Joanna Burden
narrativeFunction focus of multiple narrative perspectives
outsider figure
tragic protagonist
nationalityInFiction American
publicationYearOfFirstAppearance 1932
raceInFiction racially mixed
raisedBy McEachern family
romanticRelationshipWith Joanna Burden
symbolizes racial conflict in the American South
the burden of history
the crisis of identity

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (2)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.