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William Faulkner Dry September SS

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William Faulkner ‘Dry September’

 About the writer
 Summary and Critical Analysis
 Themes
 Characters
 Significance of the Title
 Probable Questions

About the writer

An American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford Mississippi, William Cuthbert
Faulkner has to his credit several novels, short stories, screenplays, poetry, essays and a play. He
is also known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional place called, Yoknapatawpha
County which is said to be based on Lafayette County, Mississippi. Faulkner’s prodigious output
includes:The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Light in August (1923),
Absalom, Absalom! (1936). An acclaimed short story writer, Faulkner first short story collection
is These 13 (1931) which includes many of his most acclaimed stories--- ‘A Rose for Emily’,
‘Red Leaves’, ‘That Evening Sun’ and ‘Dry September’. William Faulkner is the only
Mississippi born Nobel Prize winner. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and The Reivers (1962)
had won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Like most of the prolific and successful authors, William Faulkner had also confronted envy,
criticism and scorn of others. He was considered to be the stylistic rival to Ernest Hemingway as
his long sentences contrasted to Hemingway’s short ‘minimalistic style’. He is perhaps also
considered to be the only true American Modernist prose fiction writer of the 1930s, following in
experimental tradition European writers such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust,
and known for groundbreaking literary devices such as stream of consciousness, multiple
narrations or points of view, and view, and time-shifts within narrative.

Summary and Critical Analysis

First published in the January 1931 edition of Scribner's Magazine, "Dry September" was
reprinted in Faulkner's Collected Stories (1950) and in the Selected Short Stories of William
Faulkner (1961). This powerful study of a cultural mentality that promotes rash, swift killings of
black men is based on the Southern White Goddess concept. To understand fully the themes and
setting of the story, we need to have some knowledge of this White Goddess concept, which
applies not only to "Dry September," but also to any Southern story dealing with womanhood
and rape, including Faulkner's Light in August and Harper Lee's popular To Kill a Mockingbird.

"Dry September" by William Faulkner is a story about Minnie Cooper, a lonely and unhappy
woman, who accuses a black man, Will Mayes, of rape. The story happens in rural South, where

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racism against black people is wide spread in the society. A group of hard-core bigots, led by
ruthless John McLendon, decides to punish Will Mayes, without even bothering to check whether
Minnie's claim is true. The only opposition to their plan comes from a barber Henry Hawkshaw,
who believes that they should try to "find out the truth first" (339). In their hatred, they accuse
him of being a "damn niggerlover" (339) and proceed with their plan regardless.
As a young woman the readers are acquainted that Minnie attracts more interest among the people
in town and she is able to "ride upon the crest of the town's social life" (340), but as she becomes
older others start to look at her differently because of her poor social status. Things only become
worse as a man that she is involved with, "a widower of about forty" (341), leaves her and moves
to another town. She is desperate for attention and every day when she goes downtown she wears
her new summer dresses but to no avail of the men who "did not even follow her with their eyes
anymore" (341). From the conversation among the men in the barber shop we learn the she is
prone to exaggeration and accusing men of molesting her. Minnie's character is dynamic because
throughout the story we realize that she is very unhappy and that she tries hard to get that old
feeling of being wanted back, only to learn, by the end of story, that she will never be young and
pretty again regardless of her attempts. This realization, while sitting and watching "divinely
young" (344) couples with their "slim, quick bodies" (344) makes her aware of the consequences
of her conduct and leads her into a nervous breakdown.

The ending of the story is also significant as it is through McLendon’s interaction with his wife
that Faulkner appears to be introducing irony into the story. Will Mayes has been killed by
McLendon in order to preserve Minnie Cooper’s integrity and honour. The ending line “The dark
world seemed to lie stricken beneath the cold moon and the lidless stars.” reinforces the idea we
have seen throughout "Dry September" of a cold, lonely, and unjust world. One meaning of
"stricken" is to be negatively affected especially by an illness. The world of Jefferson, the
fictional Mississippi town in which the story is set, is definitely stricken, stricken by racism, by
conflicts between its classes, and by violence and abuse all around.

Faulkner treats many of his characters as victims of various societal forces. Of course, Will
Mayes is the most obvious victim. The only character who evokes our complete sympathy, he
does nothing to make us believe that he is guilty of raping his accuser, Miss Minnie Cooper. But
Miss Minnie is also a victim, a victim of her own sexual frustration. She is driven to desperation
by her "idle and empty days": She has no occupation, no social position, and no intellectual
interests. Trapped by her advancing age, she fantasizes, hoping that the mere hint of rape will
prove her still sexually desirable. McLendon is also somewhat of a victim— if only of the hot
and weather — but his problem stems from an insecurity that he compensates for with violent
actions. Note that every description of McLendon emphasizes his violence: His face is "furious,"
and his movements are described as violent and barely under his control. After striking his wife,
he tears through the house "ripping off his shirt" and then hunting "furiously" for it.

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The story is divided into five sections: Sections I and III show the town's reaction to the rumor
that Miss Minnie, a spinster, has been attacked by Will Mayes, a black man; Parts II and IV
familiarize us with Miss Minnie's history and give us an inside view of her emotional state; and
Section V provides us with a glimpse of McLendon's home life and his rebellious tyranny over
his wife.

Faulkner also appears to be using symbolism in the story, particularly the weather. In the first
section of the story, Faulkner uses the word ‘dead’ to describe the air which is significant as it
acts as foreshadowing Will Mayes’ existence later in the story. The opening line of the story also
acts as foreshadowing to the eventual killing of Will Mayes, Faulkner using the word ‘bloody’ to
describe the September twilight. Also, in section three of the story Faulkner again describes the
air, though this time uses the word ‘lifeless.’ He also describes the day as having ‘died in a pall
of dust.’ This may be significant as Faulkner could be suggesting that the residents of Jefferson,
particularly McLendon and the lynch mob are morally dead, by taking the law into their own
hands. Other notable symbolism in the story is McLendon’s gun. Not only as a symbol of
violence but it can be seen as to represent violence in the past, present (possibly) and future. It is
first introduced when McLendon walks into the barber shop, the reader learning that McLendon
was a soldier in WWI (past violence). It is assumed the McLendon uses the gun to kill Will
Mayes in section three of the story, which would suggest violence in the present and at the end of
the story, McLendon puts the gun down on the table in his bedroom, which would suggest that it
is to be used again, sometime in the future.

Themes
Rumour and Reliability

In the first paragraph, the narrator refers to "the rumor, the story, whatever it was." If even the
shape of the rumor is hard to pin down, it's hard to have much faith in its supposed content. The
narrator makes it clear that no one in the barbershop "knew exactly what had happened." The
only thing that everyone seems to be able to agree on is the race of the two people involved. It
would seem, then, that Will Mayes is murdered for being African-American. It's the only thing
anyone knows for certain, and it's enough to merit death in the eyes of McLendon and his
followers. At the end, when Minnie's friends exult that "[t]here's not a negro on the square. Not
one," the reader can gather that it's because the African-Americans in town understand that
their race is considered a crime, but that murdering them is not. Conversely, Minnie Cooper's
whiteness is enough to prove to the mob that she's telling the truth—even though no one knows
what she said or whether she said anything at all. The "youth" in the barbershop talks about the
importance of taking "a white woman's word" before that of an African-American man, and he is
offended that Hawkshaw, the barber, would "accuse a white woman of lying," as if race, gender,
and truthfulness are inextricably linked.

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Later, Minnie's friends tell her:

"When you have had time to get over the shock, you must tell us what happened.
What he said and did; everything."

This further suggests that no specific accusations have been made. At most, something must have
been hinted at. For many of the men in the barbershop, a hint is enough. When someone asks
McLendon whether a rape really happened, he answers:

"Happen? What the hell difference does it make? Are you going to let the black
sons get away with it until one really does it?"

In ‘Dry September’ by William Faulkner we have the theme of gossip, rumour, reliability,
repression, justice, hypocrisy and prejudice. Taken from his Selected Short Stories collection the
story is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator and very early on in the story the
reader realises that Faulkner is exploring what is commonly referred to as the White Goddess
concept.

It is also at the beginning of the story that Faulkner explores the theme of gossip and rumour.
With the exception of Henry Hawkshaw (the barber) each man in the barber shop believes the
rumour that Will Mayes has raped Minnie Cooper. Hawkshaw is an important character in the
story because he represents reasoning. Of all the men, he appears to be the one who is prepared
to give Will Mayes the benefit of the doubt. Faulkner may also be suggesting, through
Hawkshaw, that the hierarchical system in the South (black people beginning at the bottom of it)
may also need to be looked at. Rather than focusing on Will Mayes, the focus, at least through
Hawkshaw’s eyes needs to be on the veracity of what Minnie Cooper has said about Will Mayes.
It is also interesting that one of the men, who remains unnamed but who the reader is aware is
not from Jefferson tells the other men that ‘I’m with him (McLendon). I don’t live here, but by
God, if our mothers and wives and sisters…’ This may be significant as by introducing a
character who is not from Jefferson but who agrees with McLendon, Faulkner may be suggesting
that throughout the South there is a belief of the White Goddess concept.

Faulkner also continues to explore the theme of gossip in section four of the story when the
reader learns that Minnie Cooper’s friends appear to be more concerned about hearing all the
details about what has happened Minnie rather than showing any genuine concern for her well-
being. It is also interesting that Minnie appears to suffer a breakdown while she is in the movie
theatre. Perhaps the reality of what she has done (lied about Will Mayes) has become too much
for her. It would appear that Minnie’s main difficulty is that she is sexually repressed and by
lying about Will Mayes raping her she has succeeded in people showing an interest in her again,
however it is at the expense of Will Mayes’s life. It would also appear that none of Minnie’s
friends really believe that she has been raped. Just as Henry Hawkshaw doubted it, so too do
Minnie’s friends.

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Racism

The story “Dry September” demonstrates how racial ideology guides the perceptions and actions
of different people in the white community. ‘Dry September’ offers a deep insight into how racial
discourse informs the actions of a community and the anxieties that it is used to efface. Faulkner
however subverts the racial discourse by contrasting the stereotypes it constructs with the actual
disadvantaged position of the blacks. He presents a society which is in flux, a society where
hierarchies established by racial ideology are shaken up. The presence of the character, Henry
Hawkshaw who supports Will Mayes, a black is a stark contract to the characters like Mc
Lendon, Minnie Cooper and other Whites in the South.
Black people were freed legally in 1863, but decades later, they were not still accepted as equal
citizens. Black people were forced to be in their inferior place, and racial prejudice and hostility
were significantly enhanced. What has changed is that “the legal bondage of the former slaves
was replaced by a debt peonage, and a more subtle form of slavery, sharecropping, was
instituted”. In the days of slavery, the landowner with the biggest plantation and the most slaves
was considered to be at the top of the Southern social and class structure. At the bottom of the
social structure were the slaves, and poor whites were in the middle. The Civil War unsettled the
structure and the black people were considered as competitors to poor whites.

The theme of racism and racial discrimination is explicit in Faulkner’s story, ‘Dry September’not
only because it narrates the unfortunate demise of Will Mayes by the hands of the Whites just
only because of a rumour that has spread about him that he had raped an unmarried white
woman, named Minnie Cooper but also because the story specifically exemplifies the ways in
which whites used violence not to impose actual justice on society, but to maintain their own
social dominance over blacks in the South. None of the men in the barber shop know what
happened to Minnie Cooper, nor do they care about the details. In fact, when one man suggests
that the group figure out if Mayes is actually guilty, the mob’s self-appointed
leader McLendon responds, “What the hell difference does it make?” Their intention is not to
indict and then punish Mayes for his actions, but to send a message to the black men of Jefferson
and to reinforce the social structure of the South in the pre-Civil Rights era. The story, set against
the background of a dry September day, a “durnweather ... enough to make a man do anything,”
is centered around three main white figures: the leader of the lynching mob,
McLendon,presented as the prototype of the white Southerner, former war hero, a
manaccustomed to violence and ready to use it to defend the defenseless: the white women and
children (as he states); the alleged raped lady, Minnie Cooper, theone who causes all this turmoil
and whose honor needs to be protected, and,finally, the barber, Hawkshaw, the one who dares, at
least for a while, to bedifferent and speak the voice of reason in a context dominated by emotion.
In the story, ‘Dry September’, Will Mayes is an African American man , living in a small Southern
town and have been rumoured to have raped an unmarried white woman by the name of Minnie
Cooper. At that time and in that place, even the vaguest suggestion of sexual relations between
the races was considered completely unacceptable, especially if it involved a black man and a

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white woman. In such a deeply prejudiced society, mix-raced couples were generally regarded as
a threat to the purity of the white race. As it was considered such a serious transgression of the
prevailing social norms, it was often punished with extreme violence.And that's what happened
to Will Mayes in "Dry September."

Justice

The theme of justice or rather the lack of it is also explored in the story, ‘Dry September’. By
organising a lynch mob, McLendon is taking the law into his own hands and dispensing what he
considers to be justice (killing Will Mayes). There is no sign of a trial or a presumption of
innocence or investigation into what has happened, rather instead the men in the barber shop,
along with McLendon, dispense a justice that they deem appropriate. Again this sense of justice
is based on prejudice. Will is guilty simply because Minnie Cooper has suggested that he raped
her and like other black people at the time the story was written, he would be considered to be at
the bottom of the hierarchical system that was predominant in the South.Prejudice lies in
whereby the Southern male believes that a woman, particularly a white Southern woman cannot
tell a lie and hence justice is never established. Faulkner highlights the presence of injusticeby
showing how the willingness of the men of Jefferson, particularly John McLendon, to believe
Minnie Cooper and form a lynch mob to kill Will Mayes.

Violence

William Faulkner’s “Dry September” (1931) depicts violence along with black and white
tensional relationship. In the story, a black man is suspected of raping a white woman and a
group of white men get angry at this and they kill him by lynching. The focus should not be
limited upto physical violence of white men on black men but also the mental violence initiated
against the Blacks by the Whites. The horrible and brutal murder of an innocent man begins with
the rumor: Minnie, a white lady, was attacked by a negro. No one knows what exactly happened
but the angry white mob led by McLendon lynch and kill the suspected black man. Thus,
McLendon is reasonably criticized as a subject of murder, but Minnie, who has started the rumor,
is hidden behind the lynching mob. In the story, Minnie tells a lie, that is, she accuses a black
man of rape and then she withholds the truth until the death of the black man. Her verbal
violence, though it looks passive, fuels the hostility of white men against black men and triggers
physical violence.Physical and Verbal Violence in “Dry September” 73 ‘ape-like’ appearances
were proof of their savage instincts.”Southern emotion based on white supremacy was stubborn
and could not be changed overnight by change of system.

According to Iulia Andreea Milica, “Lynching is considered, by many critics, sociologists and
anthropologists, one of the most painful realities in the American past, testifying of the dividing
race lines that have defined, in a very violent way, the relationships among the racesthat were
meant to share the same land and claim authority over the new world.” In the story, ‘Dry
September’, Will Mayes isan African American man, living in a small Southern town and have

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been rumoured to have raped an unmarried white woman by the name of Minnie Cooper. At that
time and in that place, even the vaguest suggestion of sexual relations between the races was
considered completely unacceptable, especially if it involved a black man and a white woman. In
such a deeply prejudiced society, mix-raced couples were generally regarded as a threat to the
purity of the white race. As it was considered such a serious transgression of the prevailing social
norms, it was often punished with extreme violence.And that's what happened to Will Mayes in
"Dry September." An enraged mob of white men kidnapped, lynched, and murdered Will Mayes
purely on the basis of rumour and gossip. Lynching of Will Mayes was an example of
violenceSpecially lynching became a Southern problem in the twentieth century due to its past of
slavery and 95% of the number of lynching crimes in the United States occurred in the South.
And the fact that the victims were mostly black people tells us lynching was committed as a
means of defending old social order and the superior position of the whites in the South. Under
this social background, when most people in the barbershop get excited over the rumor, only the
barber Hawkshaw, who is “a man of middle age . . . with a mild face”, represents a rational
voice. He defends the alleged rapist, Will Mayes saying that he knows him and he is a good
person. He knows Minnie too, who is about forty and not married. He continues to insist not only
Will did not do it but he does not believe anything happened at all on the basis that old ladies
“without getting married don’t have notions that a man cant--” Hawkshaw’s comment sounds
somewhat prejudiced and simpleminded but other man in the barber shop also questions the truth
of Minnie’s words saying that “This aint the first man scare she ever had, . . .” However, when
Hawkshaw suggests that they should find out the facts first and let the sheriff deal with this, he
faces a strong protest and is criticized as “you damn nigger”. They are not interested in what
really happened or the truth. What is important for them is to maintain racial purity and white
supremacy.

Characters
Henry Hawkshaw

Henry Hawkshaw, also known as Hawk, is one of the barbers of Jefferson, a mild-mannered
white man. In the story “Dry September” by William Faulkner, Henry Hawkshaw is described as
a middle-aged man, “a thin, sand-colored man with a mild face” and has a “mild, stubborn tone”
when speaking.

The barber shop is one of the central gathering places for men in the town, and “Dry September”
opens with Hawkshaw discussing the rumors about Minnie Cooper and Will Mayes with his
fellow barbers and their customers. Hawkshaw vehemently defends Mayes, showing hiself to be
principled and rational in contrast to the blind racial hatred of the other men in the shop. For
defending Will Mayes for his innocence, Henry very often had to listen taunts and scorns by the
other white people. He was many times called as “damn nigger lover!” He had argued that he
knew Mayes and believed that he would not attack a white woman, and that Minnie was a

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middle-aged unmarried woman who might be prone to exaggeration. This discussion had led to a
confrontation between Hawk and John McLendon, in which McLendon questions Hawk’s virtue
as a white man. Eventually, the other men leave with McLendon in an angry mob, intent on
finding Mayes and killing him. Hawkshaw reluctantly joins the men in an attempt to keep them
from hurting Mayes, but he ends up jumping from a moving vehicle and walking back to town in
defeat. Hawkshaw’s trajectory illustrates the near-impossibility of combating racial hate with
reason, as well as the loneliness of dissent in small-town America.

Minnie Cooper

Minnie Cooper is a “thirty-eight or thirty-nine” year-old, unmarried woman who lives with her
invalid mother and a housekeeper aunt. As a girl Minnie was “a little brighter and louder flame”
than her friends and she rode “upon the crest of the town’s social life”. But her situation has
changed over the years as her peers became conscious of the class and they married and got
children. She is now called “aunty” by her friends’ children, though she does not like being
called that, and is away from the attention of men and the society. As a spinster who missed her
opportunity to marry or find a husband at an appropriate time, Minnie’s status is reduced to that
of an old black woman as revealed in the title “aunty”. She even falls to a source of shame and
disapproval. Wyatt-Brown explains the social recognition of spinsters in the old South like this:
“In the eyes of neighbors and kin, there was nothing more pitiful among women than the spinster
who was deprived of both husband and children, a double curse.”Minnie’s sexual history also
separates her from many other women in town. At some point in the past, “the town began to see
her driving on Sunday afternoons with the cashier in the bank,” a man who eventually left her for
a job in Memphis. Even the mob of men in the barber shop take a moment to question her
truthfulness based on her past, noting, “This ain’t the first man scare she ever had,” and
commenting vaguely that “them ladies that get old without getting married don’t have notions
that a man can’t…” Through these details, Faulkner establishes a world that places a premium on
social reputation, even as it suggests the arbitrary, malleable nature of such judgments.
At the center of the story’s controversy is Minnie Cooper’s honor, though Faulkner makes clear
that she, herself, has little say in the matter; Minnie has no lines in “Dry September,” and her
reputation is entirely defined by those around her even before the rumors of her alleged insult or
assault by Mayes. In her youth, Minnie “had been a little brighter and louder flame than any
other,” which may have made her the object of rumor and jealousy and excluded her from the
traditional path of marriage and motherhood. Now, she is described as “good people enough,”
but, as an unmarried woman of nearly forty, she is no longer considered a suitable prospect for
any respectable man. In either case, outward markers have been used to define Minnie’s social
value.
This backdrop points to the shallowness of the Jefferson community, which is all too eager to
latch onto and extrapolate from potentially baseless rumors in order to cast judgment. For
instance, although the men in the barber shop do not know the details of what happened to

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Minnie, they assume the worst, asking them if they will “let a black son rape a white woman on
the streets of Jefferson.” A white woman’s reputation is fragile enough to be damaged by such a
rumor, however false or truthful, and the simple possibility of sexual contact with a black man is
a significant enough to warrant violence against him. Rumor and reputation, then, are more than
social conveniences; they have distinct repercussions and consequences, especially for those
afforded little personal agency beyond what others say about them—that is, women and black
people.
Somewhat ironically, it is because of this that the veracity of Minnie’s accusation remains in
question throughout the story. The recent rumor of her insult or assault has brought her a lot of
attention from both men and women in town, essentially allowing her to reclaim visibility from
those who had dismissed her. While she had long ceased to be an object of interest to men, after
the Mayes rumors, “even the young men lounging in the doorway tipped their hats and followed
with their eyes the motion of her hips and legs when she passed.” Her female friends,
meanwhile, cannot suppress their desire to live vicariously through the details, looking at her
with “secret and passionate” eyes, telling her “you must tell us what happened. What he said and
did; everything.” Like the picture show, which offers a glimpse into life “in its terrible and
beautiful mutations,” Minnie’s story provides the townspeople with a salacious escape from their
daily lives.
Minnie’s strange actions on the evening of the attack on Will Mayes only add to the mystery. Her
laughing fit in the movie theater could be a delayed reaction to her purported assault; on the
other hand, it could be another bid for attention. Faulkner leaves it up to the reader to decide on
Minnie’s intentions and evaluate her actions. If she is lying or even mistaken in her accusation,
then, identifying Mayes as her attacker was likely an attempt to boost her own reputation at his
expense.
John McLendon

Entrusted with the role of an antagonist in the short story, ‘Dry September’, John McLendon is
the murderer and Will, his victim. The character of John McLendon is introduced in the short
story as,

“The screen door crashed open. A man stood in the floor, his feet apart and his heavy-set body
poised easily. His white shirt was open at the throat; he wore a felt hat. His hot, bold glance
swept the group. His name was McLendon. He had commanded troops at the front in France and
had been decorated for valor.”

McLendon bursts into the barber shop at the beginning of the story in order to recruit men to help
him retaliate against Will Mayes for what he may or may not have done to Minnie Cooper.

With an authoritative tone, John McLendon "are you going to sit there and let a black son rape a
white woman on the streets of Jefferson?"While some of the other men, including Henry
Hawkshaw, suggest that they should gather facts and go to the authorities, McLendon questions

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their reputations as white men tasked with upholding the status quo. He gathers a mob of angry
men and, with the gun he has tucked in his waistband, abducts Mayes and brings him to a
secluded area to kill him.

John McLendon is described as having commanded troops in France and is considered a war
hero and man of action around Jefferson. There is no mention of his current occupation, and it
appears that it does not matter much, as he is entirely defined by his wartime heroism. He lives in
Jefferson with his wife, and while he is publicly viewed as a man of valor, within the walls of his
home, McLendon is verbally and physically abusive with his wife, embodying the hypocrisy at
the center of “Dry September.”

But, the final imagery of John McLendon "panting" "with his body pressed against the dusty
screen" somehow humanizes rather than demonizing him. The character of McLendon is shown
as a bully, a lonely broken man in a broken world, a man who hurts the people with whom he
comes into contact. In the short story, "Dry September" rather than emphasizing the violence of
Will Mayes' death, the story focuses on the causes leading up to that violence and the mentality
that breeds such monstrous behavior. Closely related to this sadism, there is a sense of insecurity.
For example, John McLendon, the leader of the murderous mob, might be skilled in killing
defenseless blacks, but he is anything but successful in his private life. He physically abuses his
wife, and his house is described as "a birdcage and almost as small . . ." Unable to face personal
failure, he turns to various acts of sadism, whether they be against Will Mayes or his passive,
mothering wife.

Will Mayes

Faulkner treats many of his characters as victims of various societal forces. In ‘Dry September’
the character of Will Mayes is the most obvious victim who evokes readers’ complete sympathy,
he does nothing to make us believe that he is guilty of raping his accuser, Miss Minnie Cooper.
Will Mayes' character is not a round one, resists traditional analysis because although Faulkner
hadgiven a mere outline of a Will Mayes to be a black man, the victim of a rumour, and then the
victim of a hate crime but the readers are not confronted with Will Mayes as a strong figure in
comparison to Henry Hawkshaw, Mc Lendon, Minnie Cooper.
Will Mayes is an African American man, living in a small Southern town and have been
rumoured to have raped an unmarried white woman by the name of Minnie Cooper. At that time
and in that place, even the vaguest suggestion of sexual relations between the races was
considered completely unacceptable, especially if it involved a black man and a white woman. In
such a deeply prejudiced society, mix-raced couples were generally regarded as a threat to the
purity of the white race. As it was considered such a serious transgression of the prevailing social
norms, it was often punished with extreme violence.And that's what happened to Will Mayes in
"Dry September." An enraged mob of white men kidnapped, lynched, murdered Will Mayes
purely on the basis of rumour and gossip.

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Significance of the title

The title of a book, or any other published text or work of art, is a name for the work which is
usually chosen by the author. The importance of an apt title lies in the fact that the title of a
particular work reveals a lot about the literary work, used to identify the work, to place it in
context, to convey a minimal summary of its contents, and to pique the reader's curiosity.“Dry
September” is usually regarded as one of Faulkner’s finest stories but it has not been included in
his anthology as frequently as “A Rose for Emily,” “Barn Burning” or “The Bear.” And though
many critics generally acknowledge that the story is “a brilliant literary depiction of a small
Southern town in the grip of an utterly irrational racism”, it has not received enough critical
attention compared to his other best stories.

Written by William Faulkner, "Dry September" is a short story which was first published
in Scribner's magazine in 1931. In the story, a rumor about an unmarried white woman and an
African-American man spreads like wildfire through a small Southern town. No one knows what
really happened between the two, but the assumption is that the man has harmed the woman in
some way. In a vengeful frenzy, a group of white men kidnap and murder the African-American
man, and it is clear that they will never be punished for it. As the title goes “Dry September”,
hence it is the only reason for the rumour about the rape of Minnie Cooper that has spread all
across Jefferson town. Moreover, it is because of the “dry September” that has brought the fire of
desire among men and women. As nobody knows what has really happened between the two, if
Minnie was really being raped or not by Will Mayes, a black man but the assumption is that the
man has harmed the woman in some way.

The first line expands on the rumor of the title and gives us the bare facts of the case, which is
that something bad is about to happen, and the heat and the dust and the violent passions will
culminate in some violent and bloody event – it tells us much of what the author means by "Dry
September." Hence the initial lines of the short story compliment the title and justifies its
significance.

“Through the bloody September twilight, aftermath of sixty-two rainless days, it had gone like a
fire in dry grass---the rumor, the story, whatever it was. Something about Miss Minnie Cooper
and a Negro.”

Thus, the opening paragraph of the short ‘Dry September’ sets the tone of the story by focusing
on the oppressive heat and the resultant, uncontrolled and heated passions of Jefferson’s citizens.
Sixty-two hot, rainless days have definitely given rise frustration among the townspeople along
with the rumour of Minnie Cooper’s rape by a black man named, Will Mayes. Moreover, a
person in the barber shop declared that the weather is so unbearable, “It’s enough to make any
man do anything. Even to her…” Thus, William Faulkner has tried to establish a link between
the sequence of events in the plot along with the weather. In this context the title ‘Dry

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September’ has a symbolic meaning and significance as throughout the story, characters refer to
the weather as an excuse for their behavior.

Probable Questions
Q. Discuss elaborately the prominent themes of William Faulkner’s story, ‘Dry September.’

Q. “William Faulkner’s short story, ‘Dry September’ is an indictment of Southern culture,

specially racism.” Discuss.

Q. “Racial hatred and racial discrimination are the major motivating factor for the violence
depicted in “Dry September.” Discuss.

Q. Critically assess the significance of the title of the story, ‘Dry September.’

Q. “The character of John McLendon represents duality. On one hand, he is the leader of the
murderous mob but completely broken in his private life.” Critically examine the character of
John McLendon.

Q. “In Faulkner’s ‘Dry September’, Hawkshaw was very certain from the beginning that Will
Mayes is innocent, and is steadfast in his defense, noting, “I know Will Mayes… I know Miss
Minnie Cooper, too.” Critically examine the character of Hawkshaw pointing out his subverted
White stereotypical ideologies.

Q. Critically examine the character of Miss Minnie Cooper.

Q. How does Faulkner treats Will Mayes among many of his characters as victims of various
societal forces?

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