William's Faulkner's novel, Light in August, written in 1932, is a masterpiece in American Literature. The story is set during the 1930s and centers around the lives of Gail Hightower, Lena Grove, and Joe Christmas. However, the novel is actually about racial hatred, brutal violence, and wrongful sex and how these elements control the lives of these characters. Faulkner writes from the point of view of a naturalistic author, which can be seen through the characters in his novel, Light in August.

Gail Hightower was a man controlled by a number of outside influences and by his weaknesses. One of these outside influences were the normalcy expectations of his church. The actions that led up to Hightower's wife suicide were believed to tarnish Hightower. "The next day the town heard how he had gone to the elders and resigned his pulpit for the good of the church" (Faulkner 70). The...