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Personification
Definition of Satire
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of satire, but satirists can take... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians... read full definition
Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Protestant Values:
Faulkner's novel can be interpreted as a satire of rural Southern culture under Jim Crow, with a particular focus on Protestantism. In Chapter 3, after Hightower buries his wife, Faulkner uses a simile to draw attention to the hypocrisy of many Southern churchgoers:
The next Sunday a lot of them from the other churches came to [Hightower's] church to see what would happen. He came and entered the church. The congregation as one rose and walked out, leaving the minister and those from the other churches who had come as though to a show. So he preached to them, as he had always preached: with that rapt fury which they had considered sacrilege and which those from the other churches believed to be out and out insanity.
Hightower has never been a very good minister because he does not have much interest in conforming to social expectations within the church. He fails to prioritize his marriage, which the townspeople see as a scandalous insult to the sanctity of the institution. After his wife is killed in Memphis and he gains notoriety as the minister with the wife who "went bad," his congregants turn on him. In this passage, congregants from other churches come to his sermon "as though to a show." They want to see what this infamous minister will do the week after his wife's funeral.
While the impulse to rubberneck is human enough, these churchgoers are letting this human impulse get the better of them. Religion is supposed to guide its followers to behave in morally upstanding ways. Treating church as a place to go for entertainment and gossip is hypocritical. Once Hightower steps down as a minister, he begins to see more and more how Southern Protestantism has been warped into a tool not for promoting moral good, but rather for reinforcing social dynamics and excluding those who don't fall into line. He reflects on this distortion especially on the night before Christmas escapes from jail. He can hear the familiar music from several churches. It makes him think about how the congregants inside are so strict with themselves and others that they would rather kill Christmas than forgive him. This harsh refusal to forgive seems wrong and illogical to Hightower. It makes for a community filled with shame, alienation, and hatred, which in turn leads to violent and unforgivable behavior such as lynching. To Faulkner, there is even a sinister comedy in the way the churchgoers cling to ideas that are backfiring on them. Hightower helps Faulkner offer a critical picture of Southern Protestantism as a culture that is so obsessed with morality that it is rife with immorality.
Related Themes:
