Dry September

This story describes a typical situation in southern states during times of intense prejudice and racial discrimination. Dry September describes a story based on the "Southern White Goddess" concept of the southern white woman being a fragile and incapable of wrongdoing. If a white woman ever accused a black man of any type of sexual wrongdoing, she would automatically be believed. Class adds to the southern white woman's argument as well. A white woman of privilege would never be questioned concerning her allegations of a man's sexual misconduct towards her. This is the case in Faulkner's short story Dry September.

The black man Will Mayes is accused of raping the white woman of privilege, Miss Minnie. Even though Will seems to be innocent of the accusations, he is still treated with violence by the white males in his town. He only had one person on his side, the l0cal barber. It is questionable if the barber was fully white. In the story they compared him to the character McLendon by saying, "They looked like men of different races." Because the barber believed Will was innocent, he was also scolded and accused of being a "niggerlover."

This story is not very different from the historic case of Emmett Till in the early 1950s. The same discriminative justice that was sought after concerning Miss Minnie's allegedly rape by Will Mayes was taken with Emmett Till. The concept of justice was absent. White privilege filled the place of justice in the South, especially concerning acts of violence towards the delicate flower known as the "Southern White Goddess." Faullkner did a great job with capturing this concept and pointing the problems with it through the character called the barber. I was very pleased with this short story, although I was not sure if Will Mayes was killed or just left to wander back to town. It is documented that in the original version of the story Will Mayes was killed.