8 Light in August, Ch 15-16

1. Morganatic: : of, relating to, or being a marriage between a member of a royal or noble family and a person of inferior rank in which the rank of the inferior partner remains unchanged and the children of the marriage do not succeed to the titles, fiefs, or entailed property of the parent of higher rank. -Merriam-Webster Online

Page 364: "The gainer, the inheritor of rewards, since it will now descend upon the morganatic wife of - Shall I say that too?"


2. In chapters fifteen and sixteen we are introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Hines, an old couple who seem like another species and live in the black section of Mottstown. Mr. Hines fills his time by preaching about white superiority in black churches and the Hineses recieve their food from mysterious black visitors. When Joe Christmas is caught Mr. Hines goes crazy and tries to attack him. Mrs. Hines also acts strangely, asking a lot of questions, and it appears to the townsfolk that the couple are familiar with the fugitive. Mr. Hines is adament that Christmas should be killed immediately, no trial, and Mrs. Hines begs to see him. When Christmas leaves for Jefferson, the couple buys tickets for a 2:00 am Jefferson-bound train and sits at the station patiently waiting. Meanwhile, Byron visits Hightower, who once again chides him for his actions toward Lena. Byron then gets the Hineses and they tell of their relationship with Christmas: they are his grandparents. Their daughter, Milly, snuck around with a black circus worker. When they found out, Mr. Hines was furious and killed the worker. Refusing to get a doctor, Mr. Hines let his daughter die in childbirth. He then left Mrs. Hines with the child for a while, but later came back and took the baby. Mrs. Hines never knew what happened to Joe but always suspected that Mr. Hines had kept tabs on him. Mrs. Hines asks that Joe be released for one day prior to his punishment so that she can see him live as if he had not committed the crime. Byron, on the other hand, asks Hightower to lie and say that Joe was with him on the night of the murder.


3. I thought the parallels between the McEacherns and the Hineses were fascinating. Both men, Mr. McEachern and Mr. Hines, are convinced that their moral and "religious" codes are the only way. Both are so worried about uptaining piousness that they come across as satanic. Mr. McEachern punished Joe severely for not memorizing his bible verses; Mr. Hines essentially let his daughter die and killed a man because of what he saw as unethical fornication. Also, when McEachern goes looking for Joe at the dance, he is guided by a force outside of himself. He does not know where Joe is or what he is doing, yet he is led there somehow. Similarly, when Hines searches for Milly and the circus worker, he finds the buggy almost magically. He had no way of knowing where they were going or even who his daughter was with, yet he had no trouble pursuing and catching them. Both women, Mrs. McEachern and Mrs. Hines, seem to be much kinder and meeker than their husbands. They both take orders without question from their domineering spouses and they both exhibit compassion. Mrs. McEachern tries extremely hard to earn Joe's favor; likewise, although Mrs. Hines is not proud of her daughter's choices, she tried to save her daughter and later wishes to raise the baby as her own. These families clearly parallel each other greatly, and I think this repitition is highly significant in the scheme of the story.


4. My first question is how Mrs. Hines gained control over her husband. Throughout the story told to Byron and Hightower about Joe's past, she seems to be completely compliant to her spouse. However, as evident at the train station and when she leads him through town, Mrs. Hines now has control over Mr. Hines. How did this come to be?

My second question is how the children at the orphanage knew Joe was part-black. It is mentioned numerous times that he appears to be white, and I at first thought that Mr. Hines might have told them, but I don't think that's right.

My final question is regarding Mr. Hines's absense immediately following Joe's birth. Where did he go? Did he go to secure a place at the orphanage? Did he simply take time off to fester in anger?