Faulkner - Dry September

Perhaps the most obvious, yet most successfully executed aspect of Faulkner's short story is the perspective, or more accurately, the shifting or fluid perspective. The problem with a static perspective is that the reader only sees one side of the story (which isn't necessarily a bad thing), but certain situations are more complex and multi-dimensional than can be conveyed through only one character or perspective, etc. Faulkner, a preternaturally strong writer, is able to exploit this "problem" of perspective and gives us instead an array of views, much like in his novel "As I Lay Dying", especially the early sequence of scenes with sound of the saw being heard by various characters at various physical locations, each perceiving their environment in crucially different ways. In this we may also recognize Melville's "Moby Dick", with Ishmael as the main perspective for much of the story, later fading into anonymity and giving way to the voices of most other members of the Pequod.

Faulkner's story is dealing with the largest social burden of the American South, which is to say, black and white relations. A story like this could only be told through various perspectives, so the reader sees how the situation effects different groups of people in various levels of society, and perhaps more importantly, so the reader isn't able to come to any real conclusions. The only two people in the story who really know what happened are Will Mayes and Aunt Minnie, and by the end of the story, one will be dead, thus silencing that half of the truth forever. But Faulkner wouldn't let us have the truth anyway, even if Mayes wasn't killed. The two most significant roles (Mayes, Minnie) are also the most silent; we never get to hear what they have to say. Faulkner is getting at something big here, which is that people don't have to know the facts in order to come to drastic conclusions. A man dies for something he may or may have not done, which is Faulkner's grim portrayal of mob-justice, and we would do well to look ourselves in the mirror.

What seems to me the most interesting aspect of the story, however, is the barber character. In the barber we have the prototype for Atticus Finch, the white southerner who is generally righteous in his intentions but all the same a victim of the racist, white, conservative socio-political structure. The barber and Atticus Finch are certainly to be admired in at least some regard, if for nothing else than for standing up to their racist compatriots. Doubtless the south is a different place now, and probably always had well-meaning whites with no real disdain for blacks and no accusatory sentiments, but this is one of the sad points of both Faulkner's and Lee's stories; the individual, no matter how right or well-meaning, generally doesn't stand a chance against a group with hate and not truth or reason at its core. Ultimately, it is the mob's perspective that proves overpowering not only for poor Mayes but also for the hapless barber.

Stylistically speaking, we have a stereotypical narrative voice, or what I would call a "story teller". For instance, if one looks at the beginning of every section in the story, the scene is always being set before any character action takes place, e. g. "The barber went swiftly...", "As she dressed...", etc. Faulkner's word choice, much like some of his earlier novels, seems to come from the desire to make the reader physically uncomfortable, almost as if they were in a dusty, hot, heavy southern environment. We have "...bloody September twilight, aftermath of sixty-two rainless days...", "The air was flat and dead. It had a metallic taste at the base of the tongue," etc. Anybody who has spent time in the south at this time of year knows precisely what this metallic taste in the mouth is and how the air has a weight to it, but a dead weight. There is almost a natural violence that can be felt in the air, and by making us literally feel this sensation, Faulkner all the more effectively orients the reader in his story. We cannot know what happened between Minnie and Will, but we know what it felt like whenever it happened, whatever happened, if anything happened at all.