Isolation in the Light in AugustIn the Light by William Faulkner In August, most of the characters seem isolated from each other and from society. It is often claimed that Lena Grove is an exception to this rule, but I have found that I cannot subscribe to this view. Therefore, this essay will show that Lena is alone too, and that the message of Faulkner's work on the issue of human contact is that everyone is essentially alone, either through voluntary withdrawal from the company or through involuntary exclusion, and that the The only way out of this loneliness is having a real family to comfort you. As a child, Lena was involuntarily isolated from a society she wanted to be a part of. We are told that “six to eight times a year she went to town on Saturdays” (p. 5), which was obviously not enough for her. “It’s because she believed that people who saw her and whom she passed on foot would believe that she also lived in town” (p. 5). Lena needed to be part of society and join the ranks of ordinary people in an ordinary town, which probably meant getting married and starting a family. Living with McKinley in a remote mill hamlet continued to keep Lena isolated, and this condition was further aggravated by the fact that she was occupied most of the time with household chores. Certainly, housekeeping for a large family is a type of community, but it is not the one Lena wants. She would rather have her own family than take care of someone else's, and so she seeks love in the form of Lucas Burch. Unfortunately, Burch doesn't want to start a family. He only uses Lena for his own pleasure, and as soon as she tells him about her pregnancy, he leaves town (pp. 16-17). Lena goes on a quest to find her future husband.... .. middle of paper ......g the society she loves. When she no longer has any hope of starting her family as she believes she should, she can no longer face society because she will never fit in. Even if she married Bunch, he still wouldn't be the father of her child, making their family an anomaly. Lena became a willing outcast, dragging Byron Bunch along to help her manage her daily life, but never letting him become intimate, never really integrating him into her life. After being forced to isolate herself from society for most of her life, Lena has now chosen to remain isolated. She is as alone as any other character in Light in August. The conclusion I inevitably come to is that Faulkner wanted to portray the family as the ultimate unit of society. Without family, you can't fit into society, and if you don't fit into society, you're basically alone..