"Through the bloody September twilight, aftermath of 62 rainless days, it had gone like a fire in dry grass - the rumor, the story, whatever it was." A specific moment is captured here: twilight, the time when daylight gives way to darkness, in September, the end of summer as winter approaches - and how that moment feels: bloody, dry. A sense of urgency is already conveyed in his image of "a fire in dry grass," a sense of something out of control and moving fast. And the "it" that was moving so rapidly is the rumor.

"Dry September" studies the awful result of rumor, ignorant gossip, storytelling; at bottom it is a study of racism, plain and complex. Even our hero the barber is powerless to stop the angry flow of mob rule as the men in his shop decide to take action on the rumor themselves. "Few (novels) are more charged

Even the weather is made abstract, as the sinister mood of the story is enhanced over and over by continued references to the heat, the drought, the stale air.

Faulkner clinches this point of view in the final section of the story, where McClendon the gangleader is focused upon, and shown to be a vicious violent man even in his private life when he goes home to his "new house" and abuses his "pale strained and weary-looking" wife. This act of violence, seen against the murder just committed, is equally as senseless and insidious, seeming to rise up similarly out of the dust and heat, the "bloody September twilight," the result of age-old, pent-up powerlessness, ignorance and fear. And so the man beats upon the woman, as the gang beat up on the defenseless individual man, the objects of anger for no better reason other than that they happened to be there and in the way when the rage emerged and could not be denied.

with destiny weighing heavily over them than those of Faulkner. We have the impression of characters irretrievably choked by fate." (Pouillon, p. 79).

"Below the east the wan hemorrhage of the moon increased. It heaved above the ridge, silvering the air, the dust, so that they seemed to breathe, live, in a bowl of molten lead. There was no sound of nightbird nor insect, no sound save their breathing..."

Warren, R. P. "Faulkner: The South, the Negro and Time," In Faulkner: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Robert Penn Warren. New Jersey, Prentice Hall, 1966, pp. 251-271.

Warren, R. P. "Faulkner: Past and Present." In Faulkner: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Robert Penn Warren. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1966, pp. 1-22.

The struggle in "Dry September" is in the attempt on the part of the reader to distinguish the truth in the midst of the rumors and ignorance. Faulkner doesn't make it easy on us by drawing a picture of a good, pious and trustworthy victim. The white woman supposedly raped by Will Mayes the Negro is described as having "the scent of whiskey on her breath." Miss Minnie Cooper goes into town the Saturday evening after the lynching of will M

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)