Analysis. In a symbolic gesture of acceptance and return, Hightower assists Lena when she goes into labor

In a symbolic gesture of acceptance and return, Hightower assists Lena when she goes into labor. By this simple act, he is finally able to reach out beyond his parochial, self-contained world and “minister” to a member of the community in need. Despite the beatings and the scorn visited on him, despite the struggle for self-acceptance, he finally reclaims the dignity and pride that eluded him and is finally able to make peace with his troubled past. Through Hightower’s subsequent musings on and recollections of his family history, Faulkner widens the scope of his inquiry to take in the powerful historical forces that have gripped and shaped the South. In a novel whose main characters are haunted and dogged by their personal pasts, the pressure and influence of a commonly shared historical past is often overlooked. Faulkner thus gives the inherent schism that divides Hightower—and the other characters—yet another dimension and source.

Just as there is no one definable cause of Joe Christmas’s troubled existence, nor is there one for Hightower’s troubles; instead, a complex combination of influences emerges. The South’s historical past, fraught with division and bloodshed, is only one of many spheres shaping the unstable present with which the characters are saddled. Hightower’s inherently divided self can be traced in part to his forebears—in particular his father, who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War despite being strongly opposed to Southern principles and never firing his gun in battle. Hightower views this basic dichotomy as “proof enough that [his father] was two separate and complete people, one of whom dwelled by serene rules in a world where reality did not exist.” Hightower thus finds familial and historical sources to explain—at least in part—his own duality, disunity, and emotional unrest. He is emblematic of the individual who is framed and contextualized by society while at the same time outside its influence—the individual who consciously and unconsciously absorbs and deflects the historical and social forces surrounding him.

The novel’s final chapter marks another departure. With Miss Burden and Christmas dead, and Reverend Hightower sliding slowly into the grip of his own death, Jefferson is vacated. The focus shifts again to the wanderings of Lena. As is fitting for the novel’s cyclical nature—its inherent structure of repetition and variation—she is once again on the road, only this time joined by her newborn and Byron. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the novel’s conclusion, though, is that it is narrated by a new presence, a nameless furniture dealer who has picked up the ragtag hitchhiking family in its quest to get to Tennessee. This gesture—this addition of yet another character essentially tangential to the narrative—is Faulkner’s final commentary on the chorus of voices that have collectively formulated the backdrop of his characters’ lives and personal struggles. What remains in the end are those who turn from experience and those who actively seek it. Rather than resist a rootless, itinerant, and still-to-be-defined life, Lena welcomes her wandering, her ongoing search for her place in the world despite the suffering and challenges she may meet along the way. Rather than fight this fate, as Joe Christmas did, she embraces it, heading into the unknown future with a new life and a new love in tow.

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