Prostitution

Prostitutes are not only seen and described throughout several of William Faulkner’s novels and short stories, but also as in works such as //Light in August// and //The Sound and the Fury,// agents through which other more primary characters and their relationship to love and women are developed. Faulkner’s Memphis and its famed red light district is the home for most of the prostitution in his works, but prostitution is not entirely removed from Jefferson itself nor does it stop the residents of Jefferson from traveling across state lines to engage in it. Nevertheless, whether in Jefferson or Memphis, characters such as Jason Compson Jr., Joe Christmas, and others are regularly the clients of those working in “the oldest profession” (Caruthers 38).

Although Faulkner himself was no stranger to brothels and was fairly candid in admitting not only his knowledge of their existence but also his presence in them, whether or not the writer in his younger years actually “went upstairs” is still up for debate amongst the Faulkner biographers. Nevertheless, he was “a familiar visitor on good terms with the madams and girls” (Caruthers 40) and claims to have written //Sanctuary// out of the testimonies of prostitutes in Memphis.

Jason Compson IV, in his segment of //The Sound and the Fury// frequents a prostitute, with whom, as detailed in the appendix of the work, he would become much closer after Caroline Compson’s death and the sale of the Comspon estate, named Lorraine in Memphis. Lorraine, although described as “pleasantfaced” and labeled as “his friend from Memphis” by the townspeople in the appendix, is a prostitute at least during the main time frame of the novel (Minter 213). Although she does not figure heavily into the plot, her position as a prostitute helps to characterize Jason. Prostitutes in nature serve as an emotionless and commitment-free way to gain easily one of the benefits that would stem from an emotionally intimate relationship. A prostitute would be the perfect partner for the cynical, overworked (or at least in his own mind) “sweet daddy” Jason, who in his chapter expresses nothing but ill opinions towards the members of his immediate family with whom one naturally would share a close relationship (TSAF 193). The figure of Lorraine as a prostitute helps to hammer in this characterization of Jason as a figure detached from the emotional center of the novel. This in reinforced in the appendix as well: although the two would begin to spend time together more frequently and for longer stretches, Lorraine and Jason only see each other on weekends, a practice which Faulkner describes as supportive to Jason’s freedom. Jason Compson does not function well in real long-lasting emotional relationships and he delimits the time spent with Lorraine even though the two have become closer. Jason's relationship with Lorraine also does much to distance him from his brother Quentin Compson. Whereas Quentin is plagued by the notions of virginity, purity, and the thin line between being a lady and being a whore, Jason has no moral quandaries about his relationship with Lorraine."Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say," remarks Jason, refuting the opinions on women and virginity over which Quentin obsesses (TSAF 180). For Jason, there are no ladies to begin with. In //Light in August,// however, Joe Christmas feels almost the opposite towards the prostitute he visits in Jefferson; he wants to marry her.

Prostitution figures heavily in the //Light in August,// where it serves an important function to the novel even when not looking at the scenes of the brothel and its inhabitants. Here, it is an agent and societal institution that characterizes the male figures and traditional masculinity in the novel. Most of the workers in the planing mill spend their weekends in Memphis, presumably engaging in prostitution, gambling or other vices. Byron Bunch, however, does not, opting to spend his Saturdays working at the mill and Sundays conversing with the Reverend Hightower. In contrast the other mill workers’ opinions towards prostitution, the virginal, religious Bunch ’s creates a scope through which the reader can see the natural religious opposition towards the occupation which // Light in August // would develop further in the stories of McEachern and Hightower. Hightower’s Memphis-frequenting wife brought a great outcry from the church patrons for his removal from the pulpit and added to his developing poor reputation as a reverend. McEachern and his order to the young Christmas to avoid the diner and people like its patrons and workers also shows the presence of this strong Christian moral disapproval of prostitution and later Bobbie, whom he would deem a “ Jezebel ” in the religious figures in the novel (LIA 204). However, the longest and most detailed relationship with a prostitute is Joe Christmas’s, whose interactions with Bobbie, the pimp Max and his wife Mame provide a look into prostitution and its inner workings in not in Memphis but now in Jefferson.

Joe Christmas, during his escapes from the oppressive religion-centered world of McEachern into town, finds himself romantically, at least on his part, engaged with a prostitute named Bobbie managed by Max “the proprietor-pimp from Memphis” (Vanderwerken). Max uses the diner as a front for his pimping, where he brings in “successive imported waitress” to work in the restaurant and serves cheap food “as business justified” (LIA 178). The business operates relatively successfully as a front until Christmas wallops his stepfather McEachern with a chair at a dance, leading to a possible investigation of the people present, an investigation that might provide information about the prostitution. Joe Christmas, until shortly after the incident with McEachern, was involved with one of these “waitresses” and planned to marry her. Christmas’s relationship with Bobbie, like Jason’s with Lorraine, helps to characterize him as further from the realm of normal sexuality than he already was. Christmas's sexual life is established to be generally bizarre, existing outside of tradition. His violent sexual relationship with Burden and his assault on the black girl to whom Christmas and his friends planned to lose their virginity are put into a larger, stranger context when one considers that the only woman whom he loved romantically was a prostitute. A prostitute exists for sexual gratification without emotional connection, but Christmas is seen to believe otherwise and his love life is further characterized as atypical through this connection to Bobbie. However, Christmas is not the only unconventional participant in this relationship. Bobbie does not charge Christmas, much to the disapproval of Max. "Coming all the way down here from Memphis. Bringing it all the way down here to give it away" says Max, noting the peculiarity of the relationship (LIA 193). This marks a split between Bobbie's work and emotional life, where Faulkner characterizes Bobbie not only as a prostitute, but as a complex figure that, in some way, has a connection with the fellow societal outlier Joe Christmas beyond the normal relationship of prostitute and john.

Works Cited

Caruthers, James B. "Faulkner's Short Story Writing and the Oldest Profession." //Faulkner and the Short Story: Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha, 1990//. Ed. Ann J. Abadie. Jackson: University of Mississippi, 1992. Print.

Faulkner, William. //The Sound and the Fury: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism//. New York: Norton, 1994. Print.

Vanderwerken, David. "Faulkner’s Underworld Communities in Light in August and Sanctuary." //Teaching Faulkner//. Southeast Missouri State University. Web