Background of the Author

William Faulkner was a Nobel Prize-winning novelist of

the American South who wrote challenging prose and created
the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. He is known for novels
like 'The Sound and the Fury' and 'As I Lay Dying.'
American writer William Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi in 1897.
Much of his early work was poetry, but he became famous for his novels set in the
American South, frequently in his fabricated Yoknapatawpha County, with works that
included The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dyingand Absalom, Absalom! His
controversial 1931 novel Sanctuary was turned into two films, 1933's The Story of
Temple Drake as well as a later 1961 project. Faulkner was awarded the 1949 Nobel
Prize in Literature and ultimately won two Pulitzers and two National Book Awards as
well. He died on July 6, 1962.
Famed Author
Faulkner became known for his faithful and accurate dictation of Southern
speech. He also boldly illuminated social issues that many American writers left in the
dark, including slavery, the good old boys club and Southern aristocracy. In 1931, after
much deliberation, Faulkner decided to publish Sanctuary, a story that focused on the
rape and kidnapping of a young woman at Ole Miss. It shocked and appalled some

readers, but it was a commercial success and a critical breakthrough for his career. Years
later, in 1950, he published a sequel that was a mix of conventional prose and play
forms, Requiem for a Nun.
Personally, Faulkner experienced both elation and soul-shocking sadness during
this time in his career. Between the publishing of The Sound and the Fury and Sanctuary,
his old flame Estelle Oldham divorced Cornell Franklin. Still deeply in love with her,
Faulkner promptly made his feelings known and the two were married within six months.
Estelle became pregnant, and in January of 1931, she gave birth to a daughter. They
named her Alabama. Tragically, the premature baby lived for just a few days. Faulkners
collection of short stories, titled These 13, is dedicated to "Estelle and Alabama."
Faulkner's next novel, Light in August (1932), tells the story of Yoknapatawpha
County outcasts. In it, he introduces his readers to Joe Christmas, a man of uncertain
racial makeup; Joanna Burden, a woman who supports voting rights for blacks and later
is brutally murdered; Lena Grove, an alert and determined young woman in search of her
baby's father; and Rev. Gail Hightower, a man besieged by visions. Time magazine listed
it as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005, also including The
Sound and the Fury.
Wins Nobel Prize
In 1946, Malcom Cowley published The Portable Faulkner, and interest in
Faulkner's work was revived. Two years later, Faulkner published Intruder in the Dust,
the tale of a black man falsely charged of murder. He was able to sell the film rights to
MGM for $50,000.

One of his greatest professional moments came when he was awarded the 1949
Nobel Prize in Literature, receiving the award the following year. The committee deemed
him one of the most important writers of American letters. This attention brought him
more awards, including the National book Award for Fiction for Collected Stories and the
Legion of Honor in New Orleans. He also won the 1951 National Book Award for The
Collected Stories of William Faulkner. A few years later, Faulkner was awarded the 1955
Pulitzer Prize in Fiction along with another National Book Award for his novel A
Fable, set in France during WWI.
Death
In January 1961, he willed all his major manuscripts and many of his personal
papers to the William Faulkner Foundation at the University of Virginia. On July 6, 1962,
coincidentally the same date as the Old Colonel's birthday, William Faulkner died of a
heart attack. He received another Pulitzer posthumously in 1963 for The Reivers.
Faulkner created an impressive literary legacy and remains a revered writer of the
rural American South, having expertly captured the immense complexities of both the
region's beauty and dark past.
CONNECTION OF THE AUTHORS LIFE WITH THE SHORT STORY OF
DRY SEPTEMBER
As a Southern writer, Faulkner draws upon the mores and prejudices of his own
regional culture to create unforgettable characters and settings for his novels and short
stories. "Dry September" clearly shows the horrible miscarriages of justice that prejudice
can cause. Although the story revolves around the killing of Will Mayes, the actual act of

killing is omitted in order to keep our attention focused on the causes of the violence, and
on the mental and physical atmospheres that breed such senseless and random acts of
cruelty.
Most of William Faulkner's stories are set in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi,
and often the small town of Jefferson. This is certainly the case with "Dry September."
While Mississippi is a real place, Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County and Jefferson are
only based on real places. Still, since Faulkner spent the bulk of his life in Mississippi,
he's fictionalizing things he has seen and experienced in the racially charged, postslavery, pre-Civil rights era American South.
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/faulkners-short-stories/william faukners-biography

DRY SEPTEMBER
ELEMENTS OF THE STORY
CHARACTERS

HENRY "HAWKSHAW" STRIBLING

Truth-seeker, hero, reasonable man, and, perhaps, coward these are some of the
adjective that come to mind when we think of "Hawkshaw". He is Truth Seeker, Hero,
Reasonable Man because he is publicly defending a black man. He takes a stand for truth
and justice, and not without risk. But, he doesn't leave it at that he joins the men in their
hunt for Will. Hawkshaw continues to use reason and rationality to stop McLendon and
the other men from carrying out their plan against Will.

MINNIE COOPER

She is almost 40 years of age, unmarried, and lives with her aunt and her mother. She
spends her mornings swinging in her porch swing, her afternoons dressing and shopping,
and her evenings dressing and going to the movies. She's always accompanied by female
friends of unknown age. She is angry a lot of the time, and doesn't have any one to turn to
for him. It's possible that the neighbors who gossip to Winnie about her ex are behind the
rumor that something happened between Minnie and Will.

WILL MAYES

He might seem at first a mere outline of a black man, the victim of a rumor, and then
the victim of a hate crime. He provokes our emotions, our interest, and our sympathy. His
pleas to at least know his crime, pleas of innocence, and his begging for Hawkshaw not to
dessert him further develop him as a sincere and thoughtful man. Will is not given due
process of law, which is a fancy way of saying his rights are being violated.

JOHN MCLENDON

He is a vigilante, and the story's most obvious villain. His gun, hat, handcuffs, and
experience as a military commander give him a general air of authority. He recruits his
troops in the barbershop and then proceeds to wage war on Will, for the honor of white
women in Jefferson. He is most likely, a murderer, and Will was probably not his first
victim. If that's not enough, he abuses his wife, as we see in the final scene.

MRS. MCLENDON

She probably stays in the marriage for many of the same reasons Minnie stays in her
situation. Yet, the fact that she reads suggests that she has a window on the outside world
that Winnie does not. She also speaks she defends her actions to McLendon.

BUTCH

He is a young man. Before McLendon appears on the scene to recruit men for his
vigilante mob, Butch argues for drastic action against Will on the basis of the rumor. He
joins the mob and participates in Will's kidnapping, and probably his murder.

THE SOLDIER

The soldier is actually an ex-soldier. In the barbershop he seems to side with Butch
that something should be done about Will, but he agrees with Hawkshaw that a proper
investigation should be conducted. Nonetheless he is recruited by McLendon and
participates in the crimes against Will.

THE STRANGER

The stranger is a travelling salesman, or a "drummer" a person who drums-up sales.

He is being shaved by Hawkshaw during the argument over the rumor. He joins the
vigilante gang and participates in the crimes against Will.

MINNIE'S FRIENDS

A big goal in their life seems to be helping Minnie snag a man, in order to save her
from the ridicule and scorn she faces as a single woman of almost 40. At the same time,
they seem to be punishing her for her behavior with the bank teller.

THE BANK CLERK

The banker dated Minnie after his wife died. The town scorned Minnie for being in a
relationship with him, but apparently didn't hold it against him. His life, it seems, goes
quite well after he dumps her, a fact Minnie's "friends" enjoy sharing with her.
SETTINGS
In the town of Jefferson in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi which is a
Saturday night, sometime in September.
This story is about both the weather and all the other conflicts going on. Plus, the
notion of "environment" isn't limited to the dry, hot weather alluded to in the title, but
also the social, cultural, class, and legal environments as well.
The setting is amazingly rich and many-layered in "Dry September." Notice how
each of the story's five parts feature a distinct movement as the characters travel through
the various micro-settings of the story. The barbershop featured in Section 1 is a good
example. The relative privacy of the place, mingled with the heat, the shaving-product
smells, the sweat, and the stale air combine with a week's worth of frustrations to create a
perfect rumor incubator, a warm place for the rumor to grow and feed. For McLendon,
the barbershop is a recruiting station. His pistol-packing presence clears the room.

We also find Section 4, featuring Minnie Cooper, particularly fascinating.

Minnie's journey is circular. It begins and ends in her bedroom. In between the bedroom
scenes, the setting is in constant motion. Notice how Minnie is affected by each of the
different settings that make up her journey from and back to her bedroom when she's in
that transitional space between her bedroom and the town square, she calms down
somewhat. But, as she nears the town square, full of people since its Saturday night, she
starts freaking out again.
By the time she gets to the movie theatre her hysteria is full blown, probably as a
result of all the attention she's been getting. Inside the theatre we get the same sense of
hustle and bustle we did in the barbershop, but of an entirely different nature couples on
parade, and Hollywood dreams: The lights flicked away; the screen glowed silver, and
soon life began to unfold, beautiful and passionate and sad, while still the young men and
girls entered divinely young, while beyond them the silver dream accumulated, inevitably
on and on.
PLOT ANALYSIS
INITIAL SITUATION
It's hard to imagine that anybody in Jefferson wasn't talking about the rumor. But
the barber shop, McLendon's recruiting station, is where the plot make an example of
Will is hatched. The shop is also where Hawkshaw begs the other men to "Find out the
truth first". Unfortunately, nobody follows his advice.
CONFLICT

In the Initial Situation, Hawkshaw suggests that Minnie is a sexually frustrated

woman, capable of imagining or lying about sexual encounters with men. In this stage,
we are conflicted we feel sorry for Minnie, and at the same time imagine that there
might be something to Hawkshaw's assumption.
COMPLICATION
In this stage we're back to the men. Five men drive out of town, McLendon, the
stranger, the ex-soldier, Hawkshaw, and Butch. Things get complicated when they arrive
at the ice plant and kidnap Will. It is so complicated that Hawkshaw jumps from the
moving vehicle, taking the reader with him. We are stuck in the dusty ditch while
McLendon and company drive Will out of town. This complicates things for us because
we don't get to find out exactly what happens to Will. In all likelihood, Will is killed. In
any case, when Hawkshaw sees McLendon drive by on his way back to town, there are
only four men in the car Will has been left somewhere dead at worst and severely
injured and humiliated at the very least.
CLIMAX
"Shhhhhhhhhhh! Poor girl! Poor Minnie!" Minnie's breakdown in the movie
theatre, which culminates in her laughing/screaming fit in the bedroom probably, occurs
around the same time something bad is happening to Will. If we were to witness the
details of the abuse of Will Mayes, we would have a double climax on our hands. But,
Will's climax is left untold, a dark secret, something unpleasant to be hushed up like
Minnie's breakdown.
SUSPENSE

When we get to Section 5, we have some hope that we will learn 1) what
happened to Will after Hawkshaw removed himself from the scene, 2) learn what really
happened between Will and Minnie, and 3) pick up some details on how the rumor got
started. Since those questions aren't conclusively answered, the story suspends us in this
Suspense Stage.
DENOUEMENT
We might not get answers to the questions in the Suspense Stage, but we do get
some insight into John McLendon. We learn that he physically and emotionally abuses
his wife.

CONCLUSION
The story ends with a naked, sweaty, "panting" McLendon "pressed against the
dusty screen" of his porch where he sleeps, and then a vision of a lonely afflicted world
"beneath the cold moon and the lidless stars". The hope in this bleak vision lies in the fact
that the story is told, hopefully influencing readers to act differently than the characters.
Historical truth-telling through a variety of media, including fiction, is a powerful way to
effect change.
THEMES OF THE STORY

VIOLENCE

"Dry September" is spread with violence. Much of the violence is rumored, hinted at
or implied. It is left to the reader to decide what may have occurred. The explicit violence
in the text, the initial beating and abduction of Will Mayes by a vigilante group, and John

McLendon's abuse of his wife, are all described with stark, minimalist precision. Much of
the story's violence is in the form of psychological pressure, and social pressure, and is
exposed as the violence of a community deeply divided along class, racial, and gender
lines. The violence of nature is also at work. After some two months without rain, in the
hottest part of the Mississippi summer, Jefferson is on the verge of self-combustion. All
these factors converge in this tragically violent tale.

RACE
For some of the characters in "Dry September," a story set in post-slavery, pre-

Civil Rights Mississippi, life is black and white. For such characters, most notably John
McLendon, contact between black people and white people is governed by a strict
unwritten code that must be constantly enforced from within the community itself.
Breaches of the code result in severe consequences. Other characters, like Henry
Hawkshaw, see past color to the character of the individual, regardless of color. The
interplay between these two modes of vision sparks much of the tension in this story,
hopefully inspiring the reader to think deeply on the nature of racial divides.

SOCIETY AND CLASS

Dry September" shows us a late 1920s or early 1930s Mississippi town breaking
under the weight of its outmoded social and class structures. In the days of slavery, the
landowner with the biggest plantation and the most slaves was considered to be at the top
of the social and class structure. At the bottom of the social structure were the slaves. The
Civil War disrupted this structure, but the idea of it as the way things should be remained
engraved in southern tradition for quite some time. The story also explores the divisions

within society along racial and gender lines. The lack of roles available to women, and
the violent roles required of men are harshly critiqued. Because society is constantly
changing, the roles of men and women are never stable, but constantly shifting and
adapting to survive. "Dry September" shows how difficult those changes can sometimes
be.

JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT

"Dry September" focuses on the kidnapping and likely murder of Will Mayes, a black
man in a Mississippi town, when he is connected sexually to a white woman. The story
features a vigilante mob, and explores the psychology of the mob's formation and
operation. As we all know, this scenario was real in the pre-Civil Rights South, and even
after that. Set in the late 1920s or early 1930s, the story presents a vision of a place where
justice seems completely absent, and where conviction and sentencing come before
investigation and trial.

LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION

While the narrator of "Dry September" is reserved in terms of commentary, the

characters are not. Most of the dialogue is disturbing, and uncomfortable to read. Racial
slurs that would be unacceptable today are presented as acceptable speech in the story.
Still, there are many things implied, rather than directly stated. Here's something
interesting to do while you are reading. Notice how often character don't finish their
sentences, and seem to trail of in mid-thought. This seems to be a symptom of the
communication breakdown we see at every level of this story. From the dangerous rumor
that drives the action, to the muteness of Minnie Cooper, and the silencing of Will Mayes,

the story is deeply concerned with issues of language and communication. Hawkshaw's
incomplete sentences reflect his anxiety over his inability to communicate effectively
with the other men of the town.
POINT OF VIEW

THIRD PERSON (OBJECTIVE)

The third person narrator of "Dry September" doesn't look into the inner minds of its
characters, except in the case of Miss Minnie Cooper, and even then not too deeply. The
narrator seems objective, meaning it doesn't pass judgment on the characters directly, but
leaves this to the readers. Other than Minnie, the characters are revealed to us only
through their actions and their words.
The narrator knows what happened to Will after Henry jumps out of the car, but
doesn't say. It knows what did or did not occur between Minnie Cooper and Will, but
likewise, it isn't talking. We have our guesses as to these matters, but no definitive
answers.
Like the townspeople, we don't know the truth. As such, the narrator could be
encouraging us to not be like the town, but rather to base our judgments on the
information we actually have. The narrative voice might seem to be objective, but we can
never forget that leaving out information is way of influencing thought and skewing
interpretation. Regardless of what might or might not have happened between Will and
Minnie, what McLendon and the other men do wrong in taking matters into their own
hands. Through omission and objective narration, the story tries to get this basic idea
through to the readers.

LEVELS OF LANGUAGE

WRITING STYLE

STREAMLINED, MINIMALIST, EVASIVE, INVASIVE

For Faulkner, the complex "Dry September" is a short piece, neatly divided into
five sections that together create a unity. By streamlined we mean that everything not
absolutely necessary is pared-off during editing. Minimalism and evasion are part of the
process. Here's an example of how this works: "Mr. Henry," the Negro said.
By streamlining, using minimalist techniques, and by evading direct discussion of
many issues, Faulkner creates space for another technique, invasion. Critic Brian Sutton
writes that "Faulkner deliberately obscures the nature and origin of the accusations to
emphasize the vigilante mobs.
In other words, evasion leaves room for invasion of the character's psychologies.
Repeating words like "nigger" and "nigger lover" is a method Faulkner uses for invading
or shocking the reader's psyche to drive home the extent of the racism and irrationality in
the story. Most of the dialogue makes readers uncomfortable. It gets under our skin.
Every time we read about Minnie's skimpy dresses, or her "sheerest under things and
stockings" we are invaded with the sense of her vulnerability, and with a sense that we
are invading her privacy
MODERNISM, TRAGEDY, SOUTHERN GOTHIC
Modernism is a literary movement created by artists who were increasingly
conscious of the fact that they were living in a fractured world, full of tragic events.

Through a variety of experimental techniques the modernist artist sought to build

something useful to society from the broken pieces he or she saw in the world. We can
think of the different elements that make up "Dry September" as pieces of a broken world
full of people with broken hearts.
Every moment of this story throbs with tragedy, and each character experiences
the tragedy of living in a society where everything seems rotten and cruel. The burden of
the tragedy of this tale weighs most heavily on Will the victim of mob violence. Minnie
too carries a large portion, and is most likely has a nervous breakdown in response to the
tragedy she experiences. Hawkshaw is tragic because he tries to save Will, but fails. The
other characters are tragic in their complicity with regard to the abuse and potential
murder of Will, and in their discriminatory treatment of Minnie. Each of the characters in
"Dry September" is tragic because he or she seems stuck in the faulty structures of
society, unable to escape.
The Southern Gothic is a sub-genre of Gothic or Horror fiction. It explores anxieties
and issues felt acutely in the southern US. In contrast to Gothic fiction, Southern Gothic
is primarily concerned with race, poverty, class differences, and gender roles. These
issues are often presented in such a ways as to evoke discomfort and even fear in the
reader. The protracted Shhhhhhhhhhh! directed at Minnie at the end of Part 4 is a Gothic
sound bite. Along with the description of Minnie's laughter-screams, it casts a sense of
oppression and dread over the creepy bedroom scene.

TONE

CONTROLLED CHAOS

The dialogue and actions of the characters provide a chaotic vision of a desperate
society or deeply ailing on every level. Each member of society seems to be breaking
under the strain, and additionally brittle from the long days of too much heat and no rain.
By contrast, the tone of the narrator is carefully measured, and highly controlled. The
scene just before Will is abducted from the ice plant is a good example:
McLendon struck the Negro. The others expelled their breath in a dry hissing and
struck him with random blows and he whirled and cursed them, and swept his manacles
across their faces and slashed the barber upon the mouth and the barber struck him also.

COMPLEX SENTENCE
In which a lynch mob led by John McLendon kills Will Mayes, a black man who
they suspect raped Miss Minnie, a white woman. In part, the weather is to blame for the
mob's irrational behavior; it has not rained in 62 days. Faulkner creates sentences that,
through a series of interrupting phrases, emphasize the weather's effect on the
townspeople. One example of this technique is the last sentence in the story's opening
paragraph. Rearranged so that the subject phrase and verb stand side by side, the sentence
reads, "Attacked, insulted, frightened: none of them knew exactly what had happened."
However, Faulkner hints that the dry weather has clouded the men's logical thinking by
interjecting between the subject phrase and the verb numerous descriptions about the
stagnant air and the stagnant minds of the men. These phrases include ". . . the ceiling fan

stirred, without freshening it, the vitiated air, sending back upon them, in recurrent surges
of stale pomade and lotion, their own stale breath and odor . . ." Stylistically, these
descriptions interrupt the sentence's natural progression of subject-verb and emphasize
the weather's negative effect on the men gathered in the barbershop.
LITERARY DEVICES
SYMBOLISM, IMAGERY, ALLEGORY

THE ICE PLANT AND THE ICE

The ice plant where Will works as a night watchman can be seen as a symbol of hope,
a symbol of labor, and a symbol of the lack of productive imagination and untapped
resources. It also helps make Will a sympathetic character, and, when taken with the ice
in Minnie's final bedroom scene, links him symbolically with the woman.
The ice plant can be seen as symbol of hope it contains both cold and water. When
combined, these two things make ice and might to a lot toward cooling the passions of
the townspeople. When McLendon and the gang drive away from the ice factory, all hope
is lost. There doesn't seem much hope of the vigilante gang cooling off.
The extreme dry and heat of Jefferson in September needs is rain, water, a cool
breeze. The ice locked away in the ice plant is a symbol of how the town's real needs,
including rain, are frozen, hidden, inaccessible, obscured by dust.
Around the same time Will is abducted from his work at the ice plant, Minnie is being
iced down by her rather "friends." Sadly, at this point, the ice is too late the damage to

Will and too Minnie is done. No amount of ice can bring either of them back from the
breaking point.

THE GUN

We don't completely agree with a literal interpretation of the "Gun" theory. A gun can
function, like here, as symbol of authority, a symbol of a constant threat of violence,
whether it is literally fired or not. But we can extend this theory to mean that the images
in a given scene are significant function towards an ultimate goal of the work as a whole.
Faulkner meant to employ it in this story; we would have another piece of evidence
suggesting that Will was killed after Hawkshaw jumped from the car. The gun is first
seen in Part 1, and Part 3 (featuring Will's abduction) would be the natural place for it to
be fired. But, we can't assume that it was. The gun is seen for the second and last time in
Part 5:
McLendon took the pistol from his hip and laid it on the table beside the bed. There is
nothing to let us know whether the gun was fired, or not (and Will certainly could have
been killed without a fired gun), but it presents a symbol of past and future violence.

MCLENDON'S HOUSE

The description of McLendon's house is brought up in most discussions of this story.

So it was trim and fresh as a birdcage and almost as small, with its clean, green and white
paint.
This line gives us license to think of McLendon and his wife as caged birds. Their
house might look neat and clean on the outside, but inside violence and fear stalk the

rooms. If McLendon's home is a microcosmic representation of Jefferson, we can extend

the symbolic power of the birdcage analogy to the whole town. Even though there are
definitely hierarchies of power, with people like Will Mayes at the bottom of the
hierarchy, everyone in Jefferson is caged within the heat and dust, of prejudice and
hypocritical modes of behavior.
INTERPRETATION
The story is told in five parts. The Parts I and III focus on Hawkshaw,
the barber who tries to convince the mob not to hurt Mayes. Parts II & IV focus on the
white woman, Minnie Cooper. Part V focuses on McLendon. Together, the five sections
attempt to explain the roots of the extraordinary violence depicted in the story.
You'll notice that no section is devoted to Will Mayes, the victim. I think it's
because he has no role in creating the violence. Knowing his point of view can't shed
light on the origins of the violence; it can only emphasize how wrong the violence is -which I hope we already know.
WHAT'S UP WITH THE TITLE?
Here's a quote from said author that helps us understand the nuances of the title:
I write about the human heart in conflict with itself, its fellows, with its environment.
It's all there. The bloody human heart, the conflicts between people, that burning rumors,
the hot weather are notorious for helping fan the flames. In short, the title presents us
with a version of the story pared down to its most basic element dry weather. And for
Faulkner, the weather is only important in so far as its impact on the people experiencing
it.

WHAT'S UP WITH THE ENDING?

We think that Faulkner left things uncertain so as not to distract from the main
issues of the story. It seems as if he were revealing that the social norms in the southern
United States in the late 1920s and 1930s resulted in a corrupt and diseased society where
justice was unavailable, and where gossip became truth. The uncertainty in his story
places the reader in the same position as the townspeople: the position of not knowing
what happened. We could interpret "Dry September" as a warning against drawing
conclusions based on assumptions instead of facts, both in our lives, and in our readings.