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Dry september themes and characters
Dry september william faulkner
Critical analysis of dry september by william faulkner
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The Physical Atmosphere in Faulkner’s Dry September
An anonymous patron in the barbershop at the beginning of “Dry September” makes one of the key statements in the short story: “It’s this durn weather. . . It’s enough to make a man do anything” (170). The patron sees the heat and drought as having possibly driven a black man to attack or offend a white woman. The idea that the weather has an effect on the townspeople is echoed at the end of the story when McLendon’s wife says, “I couldn’t sleep. . .The heat; something” (182). In both examples, the climactic conditions and external environment are seen as affecting the town dwellers’ behavior. The physical atmosphere, however, seems to be more a reflection of the emotional atmosphere of the townspeople than the cause of their agitation, as the barbershop patron would have us believe. In particular, the dust that pervades the story can be seen as a reflection of the dried-up, monotonous, and lonely existence of Minnie Cooper.
She lives with two old women, her sick mother and her “sallow, unflagging” aunt, and Minnie’s days are typically filled with nothing more than eating, napping, and going to shops in town to meet with other women haggling over prices for the fun of it (173). Minnie does not even have genuine friendships to enliven her “idle and empty” or dry and dusty days (175). Instead of establishing a female camaraderie between characters, Faulkner portrays relations between women as marked by tension and dissimulation; “one of those bitter inexplicable (to the man mind) amicable enmities which occur between women” (156, Absalom, Absalom!). As Minnie’s presumed friends during girlhood become women, they take pleasure in the fact that Minnie’s transition to womanhood marks the end of her days as a social butterfly; Faulkner calls it the pleasure of “retaliation” (174). The neighbors she visits on Christmas, women “friends” most likely, revel in the opportunity to tell her of how well her former love-interest is doing without her in Memphis, “watching with bright, secret eyes her haggard bright face” (175). When Minnie is having a fit of uncontrollable laughter at the end, the women she is with act solicitous and kind, smoothing her hair and saying “poor girl” to her, but this is shown to be dissimulation—they smooth her hair, not to comfort her, but to look for signs of graying, and between the expressions of compassion spoken in Minnie’s hearing, they speculate furtively over the veracity of her claim (182).
In the 1954 court ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of schools was unconstitutional and violated the Fourteenth Amendment (Justia, n.d.). During the discussion, the separate but equal ruling in 1896 from Plessy v. Ferguson was found to cause black students to feel inferior because white schools were the superior of the two. Furthermore, the ruling states that black students missed out on opportunities that could be provided under a system of desegregation (Justia, n.d.). So the process of classification and how to balance schools according to race began to take place.
They are already in a compromising situation in celebrating her eighteenth birthday at a gas station having coffee which was already established as being not the norm earlier with Marie recounting her own large party where her “mother made a large party” (154). There reality is broken when the teenagers arrive and “One of the girls went to the juke box and put money in” and they are forced to leave because of Carol condition which causes her to have a breakdown from the noise (157). The arrival of the kids forced them to come into contact with their own reality which can never coincide with the one they have fabricated. This small reminder of what the norm is supposed to be is often brought to their attention through others such as when they “could see, in the light shaft of light, a boy, two girls and a dog” (155). In this instance, they are walking on the way to their weekly picnic, which is in itself repetitive, when they are shown the norm of other having fun “the boy splashing in the water with the dog” while they are forced to go through the motions without much emotion. This depiction of the norm unsettles their reality and, even though they don’t stop trying to alter reality to shelter Carol, shows how dysfunctional their own situation is as it can be seen as a potential version of themselves without Carol’s
The Wrights home was a poor, lonely type of home. The trees that surround the house grew in a sad state. The road that led up to the farm was an unoccupied path. Minnie Wright is the woman who lives on these lonely grounds. She is friendless and mostly keeps to herself. There is no one for her to talk to, her husband died recently, thus, she lives out her life as an outcast. In hindsight, Mrs. Hale, a woman who knows Mrs. Wright, explains to her friend, “'But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs. Peters I wish I had come over sometimes when she was here I wish– I had.’ I [too] wish I had come over to see Minnie sometimes.’” Since no one takes the time out of their busy schedules to visit Mrs. Wright, Minnie feels unwanted.
Minnie Foster was once described as the belle of the ball. To look at her tonight for the first time you could see why. She carried herself with both an air of confidence and modesty at the same time. Her small eyes dominated her face. They did not look directly at you anymore though. Still, they seemed all knowing and experienced as if they were able to see and know secrets about you that you wish no one knew. Her slender peaked nose was no match for the full lips she had, lips that never uttered a sound and which have become as pale as her knuckles. Her lips were pierced shut protecting the thoughts in her head from falling out one by one to the hard flooring.
William Faulkner, an American author, wrote the novel, Light in August, in which Joe Christmas is at the center of the story. Joe Christmas is an orphan who is of biracial descent. At a young age, Christmas was adopted by a man named McEachern. When Christmas became older, he killed his father. From that point on, Christmas wandered about until he reached Jefferson, Mississippi where he fell in love with Joanna Burden, whom he also killed later on in the story. For this reason, along with numerous others, Christmas was lynched at the conclusion of this novel. William Faulkner carefully integrates several different ideas that can lead to a man’s solitude. According to the book William Faulkner by Harold Bloom, “…his fiction is steeped in the tones and emotions of the Deep South” (11). This holds true for Light in August since there is plenty of racism and hatred towards blacks. In William Faulkner’s novel, Light in August, Joe Christmas’s identity, psychological attitude, and resemblance to Christ are revealed through his isolation from society.
First, When Martha and Mrs. Peters arrive at the scene of the crime, they see that it is a very lonely place off the road. The house is in a hollow, with lone-some looking trees around it(1).Mr. Hale thinks that having a phone to communicate with rest of the world in such place will reduce loneliness although Mr. Wright does not want communication(2). Minnie lives a miserable life in this place. Martha cannot believe that this is what Minnie foster has turned into. She describes her rocker, and says: “ that rocker don’t look in the least like Minnie foster. The Minnie foster of twenty years before”(3). The rocker is a very old rocker with a faded color and few parts of it are missing. Also, Mrs. Hale thinks it is a torture for Minnie to wrestle with the stove year after year because that stove is in a very poor condition(8). These are some few examples that show how miserable Minnie is in such a lonely place.
In September 1957, nine African American high school students set off to be the first African American students to desegregate the all white Central High School. The six agirls and the three boys were selected by their brightness and capability of ignoring threats of the white students at Central High. This was all part of the Little Rock school board’s plan to desegregate the city schools gradually, by starting with a small group of kids at a single high school. However, the plan turned out to be a lot more complex when Governor Orval Faubus decided not to let the nine enter the school.
When people go to a haunted house or watch a scary movie they might notice their body changing. For the independent research project blood pressure was checked based on age and gender before then after shown a scary clip. When measuring people blood pressure he or she might have had other problems with blood pressure based of weight, family history or stress. Must observe those types of things while performing the experiment because it could mess up the data.
William Faulkner’s short story "An Odor of Verbena" is the tale of a young, Southern man, Baynard Sartoris, who must come to terms with his father’s sudden (but not entirely unexpected) murder. Because this murder takes place in the decade following the Civil War, young Baynard is faced with the South’s ancient honorary code. This code dictates that, as the only son of his father, he must avenge this death. Should Baynard fail to retaliate on his father’s behalf by confronting the murderer, Redmond, who once was his father’s business partner, both Baynard and his family would lose face within their community.
The characters in Faulkner's southern society are drawn from three social levels: the aristocrats, the townspeople, and the Negroes (Volpe 15). In "A Rose for Emily," Faulkner describes Miss Emily Grierson in flowing, descriptive sentences. Once a "slender figure in white," the last descendent of a formerly affluent aristocratic family matures into a "small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head" (Faulkner, Literature 25-27). Despite her diminished financial status, Miss Emily exhibits her aristocratic demeanor by carrying her head high "as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson" (28). In an equally descriptive manner, Faulkner paints a written portrait of Miss Minnie Cooper in "Dry September." He portrays her as a spinster "of comfortable people - not the best in Jefferson, but good enough people" and "still on the slender side of ordinary looking, with a bright faintly haggard manner and dress (Faulkner, Reader 520). Cleanth Brooks sheds considerable insight on Faulkner's view of women. He notes that Faulkner's women are "the source and sustainer of virtue and also a prime source of evil. She can be ...
Firstly, the narrator gives little detail throughout the whole story. The greatest amount of detail is given in the first paragraph where the narrator describes the weather. This description sets the tone and mood of the events that follow. Giving the impression that a cold, wet, miserable evening was in
In William Faulkner’s Light In August, most characters seem isolated from each other and from society. It is often argued that Lena Grove is an exception to this, but I have found that I cannot agree with this view. Consequently, this essay will show that Lena is lonely too, and that the message in Faulkner’s work on the issue of human contact is that everyone is essentially alone, either by voluntary recession from company or by involuntary exclusion, and the only escape from this loneliness is to have a proper family to comfort you.
The story is set in a rural community in turn-of-the century Iowa. This time-frame is one where women did not have the freedom they have today, but were instead seen as wives, cooks and housekeepers. This is the basis for Minnie’s isolation, her place in the society of the day. This is also compounded by Minnie’s husband, John Wright, who makes her more isolated than many other women of the time. We see that Minnie is isolated from love. Her husband is not an affectionate man and she has no children. In the story, we are told that after her marriage her only friend was “solitude.”
... Speeches and Writings of Mao Zedong (1927-1947).” Columbia University. Accessed November 27, 2013. http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/
Through the imagery, we learn that Minnie’s life as John’s wife wasn’t a pleasant one. He kept her from being a part of the world outside their home. She was like a bird who was caged, and was dying to be set free. Which leads to another part in the play, Mrs. Hale finds a caged bird, who was strangled to death. Minnie did this as a way to show how she felt. Locked up, and dying to be set free, but John strangled her life and made it impossible to be let out. This explains how John controlled Minnie, she couldn’t take this feeling of being trapped any