A Persecuted Name: Faulkner's Jesus And Jesus Of Nazareth

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A Persecuted Name: Faulkner’s Jesus and Jesus of Nazareth

When thinking about history, most people can conjure up some knowledge about the history of Black Americans and Jesus of Nazareth. Manual labor under harsh conditions and a controlled living in society are two ideas that most people associate with the history of black slavery. It is also well known that the white, old south plays a significant part in the history of the Black American’s struggles. The name, Jesus, is often known because of his influence and fame in respects to Christianity. Thinking about Jesus also invokes ideas and feelings about Jesus’ persecution and struggles as well. That Evening Sun, by William Faulkner, calls to mind many ideas of history. By choosing a black man named Jesus for a character in That Evening Sun, Faulkner uncovers and illuminates the relationship between the White Majority of the Old South, and the Roman and Jewish majority at the time of Christ.
In the 1930’s traditional, Old South, blacks begin entering into the lives of the whites more and more; the social mentalities of the whites perceive this as less than appealing. Faulkner begins discussing the setting, the city of Jefferson, as a place where the electric and telephone companies are taking over and cutting down the trees to make way for “iron poles bearing clusters of bloated and ghostly and bloodless grapes…” (76). By placing this metaphor at the beginning, Faulkner is insinuating that these changes, even though modern and efficient, are destructive. Cutting down trees to make way for any new technology takes away from the traditional look of any town in the 1930’s. These ideas are portrayed as a bit scary by using the negative connotation of “ghostly.” “Bloodless” suggests that there is no sustenance or life either; in this case, both “ghostly” and “bloodless” refer to the blacks in a way. Faulkner chooses to name a black man Jesus...