Dry September

Dry September Faulkner describes the setting and characters to show the

conflict and the race relations that go.

Dry September

Faulkner describes the setting and characters to show the conflict and

the race relations that go on in the story. There are a lot of

conflicts between people not just because of the race relationship but

as well as internal conflicts that are not as obvious. There are three

major characters (out of 6), Hawkshaw, Minnie, and McLendon, who are

the main characters and the book is divided into 5 sections. The first

section is an argument over the raping of Minnie at the barbershop,

the argument is basically between the world and Hawkshaw, the second

section is a flashback to Minnie’s life, the third section is the

barbershop again, this time we see a gang being formed, the fourth

section is Minnie’s life now, and the fifth section gives us a little

information about McLendon’s background.

The overwhelming setting is a hot, dry September day, “sixty-two

rainless days” (para. 1). The characters use the setting as an excuse

to be irritable, defensive, after all the eaht does make people do

things like that. In Part V, the part about McLendon’s life at home it

has his wife stating, “Don’t John…I couldn’t sleep…the heat;

something” (para. 99). There are a lot of foreshadowing using the

environment. “It had gone like fire in dry glass-the rumor, the story,

whatever it was.” (para. 1), which not only foreshadows the fact that

word is getting out but that people are going to irritate other people

and things are going to spread, be it emotions, opinions, the mob

attendance, who knows? There is a lot of use of the words red and

bloody and things that insinuate death or terror or disaste...

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... a plain looking girl, “a comfortable looking

girl”, nothing special. “No man ever called on her steadily” (para.

50), so no man wanted her or even looked at her when she walked by,

“in the doors of which the sitting and lounging men didn’t even follow

with their eyes anymore” (para. 52), but then after she gets raped we

find she gets the sexual attraction she wants. “Then the drug store,

where even the young men lounging in the doorway tipped their hats and

followed with their eyes the notions of her hips and legs when she

passed. (para. 89).

In conclusion, there are a lot of things that add to the story,

including things in the story such as descriptions and rhetorical

features. In “Dry September” Faulkner uses the setting in particular

the weather and the character development and relations to add and

define the underlining theme of Racial Relations.