A study of the racial themes in Faulkner's "Light in August", Alan Paton's "Cry, the Beloved Country" and "Too Late the Phalarope"

The racial curse is one of the recurring themes that captures and envelopes twentieth-century fiction. This study concerns the racial themes in Faulkner's Light in August, Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country and Too Late the Phalarope.

Faulkner exposes the racial theme in Light in August by tracing the life of Joe Christmas and the conflicts he encounters until his death. Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country is a study of the exploitation of the non-whites and their plight by the elite ruling class. The study examines a series of important issues--philosophy, moral indignation, sensitive character analysis, and man's understanding of his fellow human beings. The focus of Too Late the Phalarope is the Immorality Act. The study also raises various racial, political and social issues. The study concludes with both writers' attitudes toward race and the reasons for the major impact these works have had in the fiction of our century.