Unnamed Members of Hightower's Congregation

In Light in August the old men and women, pillars of the church, are among the first to "astonished and dubious" about Reverend Hightower's obsessions (61). Others increasingly view his behavior and preaching with suspicion, and gossip about him and his wife - though they also raise funds to pay for Mrs. Hightower's treatment in a sanatorium and cook meals for him during her absence. When his preaching becomes more incoherent after her death, they finally lock him out of the church - though they also raise funds to help him relocate in another town, and are disappointed when he stays. In other words, the novel's representation of these Presbyterians is complex, though on the whole it sees them in the same negative way that Hightower, after he has been defrocked, hears them during choir practice: their songs reveal that "pleasure . . . they cannot seem to bear . . . And so why should not their religion drive them to crucifixion of themselves and one another?" (368).