在福克納的《八月之光》中，意識的掙扎隨著角色的流動性而來。這些衝突迫使角色不斷地透過直覺重塑他們固化的慣性知識。法國哲學家伯格森將直覺方法視為將我們從慣性解放出來的唯一途徑。直覺方法使我們能在意識上擺脫時間的限制；我們則得以在意識中體驗無時序的主觀時間。在主觀時間中被觸發的行為便稱為自由意志的行為。行為的結果觸發了新的感知；在行為和意識間不斷發生的差異確保自由意志中持續不斷的不確定性和可能性。由伯格森式的自由意志來看，喬的死應被視為不可預測和自由的。然而，在法國哲學家沙特對此角色做出評論後，許多批評家也紛紛認為喬是被困在過去的囚犯。事實是，我們不應武斷地認為他的偏執僅是源自於過去的束縛。根本來說，福克納藉由強化角色對於時間認知所產生的焦慮，深入地的呈現人類忍受力的價值。因此，在時間的變異上，福克納認為的忍耐力與伯格森的自由意志不謀而合。以伯格森作為分析參照，過去僅是喬意識中其中一個可能性。福克納更進一步地在角色意識與行為的衝突中，凸顯了伯格森理論尚待發展的範疇；自由意志的價值不僅可解放時間的枷鎖，且接受失敗和挫折更可使意識不斷延續。

In William Faulkner’s Light in August, the conscious struggles are results of characters’ mobility. Those conscious conflicts enable the characters to reshape customary knowledge through intuitive response. Henri Bergson, the French philosopher, explains the vitality resulting from human intuition. The capacity for intuition releases people from the constraint of measured time; therefore, the realm of timelessness could be experienced as a conscious duration. Actions originating from this apparently disordered time-space are regarded as the acting of free will. In Bergson’s interpretation, the disordered time represents the unconstraint of time in consciousness. The consequence from action provokes our perceptions. This conflict guarantees the sustained uncertainty in consciousness. In Bergson’s interpretation of free will, Joe Christmas’s death is regarded as an act of free will since his decision contains uncertainty which is not resolved until the end. However, critics following Jean Paul Sartre’s interpretation of Joe Christmas tend to label this character as the prisoner obsessed with the past. The truth is that his obsession should not be narrowly asserted as the “fetters” of the past. Instead, Faulkner magnifies the anxiety of time, which unsettles characters, and regards it as the value of human endurance. Faulkner’s core value of human endurance and Bergson’s approach to free will happen to align in terms of time’s variation. In fact, Christmas’s entanglement of the past is merely one of dimensions in Faulkner’s time spectrum. Taking Bergsonian free will as the departure, our understanding about characters’ perplexing performances advance to a more comprehensive level. Therein, the anxiety from disordered time becomes crucial to achieve their free will. More significantly, Christmas’s “personified time” problematizes Bergson’s approach to free will. In the liberation of time, free will is possible; the failure is equally potential. Faulkner’s characters more comprehensively accept both possibilities.

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