Dry September

The first five words of this story really struck me: "Through the bloody Septmber twilight..." How beautiful. The sentence continues, of course, but those first words were really striking to me. The first and the last: The last line from "Dry September" was also very striking: "The dark world seemed to lie stricken beneath the cold moon and the lidless stars." Wow! It seemed to really sum up this whole story. Cold, always watching the dark color of the skin... "...lying stricken" seemed to show what happened to Will Mayes, even though we never really get closure on that. I enjoyed this story as well as "A Rose for Emily" even though it made me tense and sad. The language was so remarkable-- these short stories have been very strong, in my opinion.

The barber shop dialogue was really captured real tension between the men. The horrible McLendon and his getting the whole horrible mess going... I thought it was interesting that Faulkner never gives any details about what actually had happened between Will and Minnie. And that her being older and unmarried would be a reason that she would create stories about men. Minnie was an intriguing character and I would have liked to have gotten to know her a bit better than was offered. Same for Will. We don't really get into their lives very much, moreso Minnie's. This, though, kind of steered the story to excentuate the innocence of Will, I thought, and the injustice and prejudice of many whites in this time period. A white woman's word was more valuable than the life of a black person's life. People who didn't even really know her were willing to murder just because she said something happened. This really brings home what, or maybe what Faulkner thought, was a likely scenario. Maybe?

Since there is such a lack of information on Will's life and Minnie and Will's interaction, there is still a question left in the mind of the reader as to what really happened. Did Minnie lose it because something terrible happened or because she had lied about it? Faulkner leaves the conclusions to the reader, but I felt it was a bit leaning more toward Will being innocent.

The last scene showed McLendon in a really poor light, and continuing in the mind of the reader uncalled for brutality that he was capable of. His wife stayed up past a certain hour and she gets smacked... That's pretty ridiculous. Faulkner seems to zero in on the characters that are supposed to be disliked, like Jason in Sound and the Fury and Popeye in Sanctuary, and I think he really didn't want the readers to like McLendon from the beginning.

I enjoyed this story and it, along with "A Rose for Emily" was less Faulknerian than his novels, in my opinion, and a lot more accessible.