A Study of Joe Christmas in Light in August Joe Christmas's eating disorder and dislike of female sexuality (or the feminine) in Light in August may also be traced back to the primordial scene in the dietician's room. However, the primary scene is not the final piece of the novel's puzzle. The primary scene is already given as a working condition for further analysis of Joe's psychology. Readers are first invited to relate the scene and Joe's behavior in the rest of the novel.1 However, drawing one-to-one relationships between the primary scene and Joe's symptomatic behavior merely repeats Freud's theory to itself. Mechanically connecting the dots does not resolve the novel's most crucial problem, Joe's racial identity. The primary scene, like a dream, requires further inspection of its undersurface: something distorted or unsaid. He also urges us to expand Freud's perception of the unconscious. The unconscious is not just a personal wastebasket of one's repressed sexual energy. As the case of Joe Christmas demonstrates, the unconscious is always already cultural and social. The unconscious is multiple and full of others. Focusing on the primal scene, this essay will explore the psychology of Joe Christmas and the issues of his racial identity. The above excerpt is provided to give the student a better understanding of the focus of the article. The full document begins below: We witness Freud's reductive joy; we literally see the multiplicity leave the wolves to take the form of goats that have absolutely nothing to do with the story. Seven wolves that are just kids. Six Wolves: The seventh goat (the Wolfman himself) hides in the clock. Five Wolves: h...... middle of sheet ......originally published as Mille Plateaux, volume 2 of Minuit's Capitalisme et Schizophrénie in 1980 in France. Faulkner, William. Light in August. New York: Vintage, 1990. Originally published 1932. Karl, Frederick R. William Faulkner: American Writer. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989. Note1 Joe's symptoms of anorexia nervosa, his dislike of objects resembling female genitalia, and his disgust with anything or anyone with feminine faculties are closely interconnected with the primal scene .2 It is interesting to note that the psychic scene determinism in Joe's case is opposed to Gavin Stevens' theory of black blood and white blood. While the former attributes Joe's symptoms to "culture," Stevens' blood essentializing theory attributes them to "nature." The conflict between "nature" and "nurture" has become a major American theme.