“It was only as he put his hand on the door that he became aware of complete silence beyond it, a silence which he at eighteen knew that it would take more than one person to make.” The term liminality means standing on a threshold, in that moment when a person prepares to move through or beyond into a new phase of existence. This definition includes transitions such as coming of age from youth to adult, an increase or decrease in economic status, and the passage from life to death. What all these experiences have in common is the liminality is temporary; the threshold is crossed, the change complete. However, in the case of more static societal understandings of race, ethnicity and miscegenation, liminality is unfortunately more permanent. In Light in August, the Southern author William Faulkner creates Joe Christmas, a character trapped in a state of permanent liminality. Joe, told all his life that he is miscegenated, remains at the intersection of deciding whether he is white or black, which in turn determines whether he is rich or poor and good or evil. Faulkner uses Joe as an example of the hazards inherent to crossing this racial threshold. Faulkner's narrative makes the argument that abrupt changes in social strata are dangerous to all people involved regardless of their perceived skin color, and that those like Joe Christmas need to accept their uncomfortable position in society. Our contemporary viewpoint is that Joe Christmas would be better off if he could just choose his own race and have the power to live in it; however, the society of his day will not allow him to do so, keeping him in a state of permanent liminality.