is supposedly, the source of the fire. We are told he is a mysterious drifter who keeps to himself. He is also Ms. Burdens lover and lives in a cabin behind her house. He was told all throughout his life he was part Negro, enough to believe it himself. But how did he get to be alienated from society? We are shifted back in time to Christmass childhood in the orphanage. He hung from the hands, limp, looking with slack-jawed and glassy idiocy into a face no longer smooth pink-and-white, surrounded now by the disheveled hair whose smooth bands once made him think of candy. You little rat! the thin, furious voice hissed; you little rat! Spying on me! You little nigger bastard! (pg. 114). This incident with the dietician occurs when Christmas is only five. His alienation stemmed from that time as the dietician told him that he was a little nigger bastard. Not only did he feel alienated from the adults in the orphanage, there were also the children. You knew before the other children started calling him Nigger. (pg. 118). Even as a child, Christmas was regarded as a reject from the orphanage. Christmass past gives the reader an idea how he became to be a product of alienation in present time of the novel. We could also look at another character, for example, Joanna Burden, the lover of Joe Christmas. We are first told that she is a lonely secluded woman whose family is known to be abolitionists of slavery. The Burden family was shunned from the people in the South because of their beliefs of slavery. They hated us here. We were Yankees. Foreigners. Worse than Foreigners: enemies. Carpetbeggers. Threatening white supremacy. (pg. 235). The Burden families beliefs caused Joanna to become alienated from society. Presenting the reader with the past gives them an idea how each character became alienated in the story. Thus, the shifting from present to past, is an effective technique Faulkner uses to present the theme of ...
