Burden: The Name Says It All in Light in August Expectant parents devote a lot of thought, time and energy to choosing a name for their baby. They turn to family trees and name dictionaries to help them with their important decision. In many ways, a child's name can determine who they will become and what kind of person they will be. Then there's the last name. It's automatic; no one has a choice. The family name perhaps has more impact in determining who a person becomes, because it carries with it generations of ideals, memories, and pride. William Faulkner chose very meaningful last names for the characters in the novel Light in August (1932). Light in August is the story of Joe Christmas, a man excluded from society due to his possible black heritage. The novel describes part of his youth in a very strict and religious adoptive family, his struggle with himself, and his life in Jefferson, Mississippi. There he gets involved and ends up murdering Joanna Burden, a so-called "nigger lover". Joanna is a very strange woman with a rather unusual past. His last name represents generations of self-imposed struggle and despair. Faulkner gave her and her family the surname Burden to better illustrate, explain, and characterize Joanna and her nature. Joanna is first mentioned in chapter two by a townsfolk-type narrator as "a middle-aged woman." She has lived in the house since birth, but she is still an outsider, a stranger whose people came from the North during Reconstruction. A Yankee, a lover of Negroes, who is still talked about in the city of strange relations with the Negroes of the city. " (33). It is clearly evident that Joanna Burden has no sense of community with the townspeople, nor they with her. In fact, about the burning of her house, one man says, "My father says that he remembers how people said fifty years ago that it should be burned, and with a little human fat to start with” (35). saying: “They say she's always mixed with the niggers. She visits them when they're sick, like they're white. That's why people never go out there" (38).