This document provides a summary and analysis of two short stories by William Faulkner set in the fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi: "A Rose for Emily" and "Dry September." Both stories examine the societal expectations placed on unmarried women in the South and the consequences these expectations have. In "A Rose for Emily," Miss Emily Grierson is driven to isolation and eventually murder due to the town's disapproval of her single status. In "Dry September," Minnie Cooper feels obligated to lie about an encounter due to pressure, putting a man's life at risk. The document analyzes how both stories portray the oppressive nature of societal norms in the town and the harm caused to women and others as

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Alexis Smith
27 October 2015
Skeletal Remains of Jefferson
William Faulkner’s fictitious small town of Jefferson, MS, with all of its southern charm,
could not hide behind the Tara-like doors the remains of a deep-rooted myth of what the town
mistakenly believed was their cultural heritage. Buried under the large oaks and plowed soil were
secrets of the past consequences of societal pressure on the Southern belles. With Faulker’s “A
Rose For Emily,” the reader can identify the consequence that Emily’s beau, Homer Baron
endured because of the town’s pressure on Miss Emily. In another of Faulker’s stories, “Dry
September,” the reader is left to wonder how many repercussions follow the expectancy put on
the story’s protagonist, Minnie Cooper. Both stories prove that societal pressure on women
produce severe consequences to not only the women targeted, but also their associations.
At the beginning of “A Rose For Emily,” Miss Emily Grierson, a woman of “old”
Southern aristocracy, is dead and the whole town has come out to see what went on in her lonely
house all these years. The first picture the reader gets of this mysterious woman who has become
a recluse to the ever changing town of Jefferson is her wake. From the beginning of the story, it
appears that Miss Emily carries with her the duty to carry out what the town expects from her.
The narrator, being the entirety of the town, shows its sexist view from the outset making
statements such as, “…only a woman could have believed it” (Faulkner, 82) when discussing
Emily’s belief that she was remitted of paying taxes. The town knows her deceased father well,
and knows what kind of “lady” he could have made out of Emily. It was expected for any
respectable southern lady to marry an approved gentleman and conform to the mold prepared by

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the generation before. Faulkner shows the main reason for Miss Emily’s struggle, “After her
father's death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at
all”(83). The text suggests that Emily was not comfortable with the changes going on in
Jefferson and it is clear that when she went out she was the talk of the town.
The expectancy that the town had for Emily to be like other young ladies of Jefferson and
to marry and be a social woman drove her to withdrawal from any societal connections and
eventually turned her into a murderer. Even with her obvious statement to the town to leave her
alone, they continuously pursued answers for their many questions. After continuously being
turned away, “a few of the ladies had the temerity to call,” (83) again to no avail. When a smell
coming from the old house eroded the town, more people became involved in trying to coax
Emily from the home. They failed.
Soon, the town turned from curious to concerned and Faulkner shows this by stating,
“After a week or two the smell went away. That was when people had begun to feel really sorry
for her” (84). Now the town, who through learned culture, has driven a woman to resist and
eventually ignore their humiliation. When the one man who had courted her and had given her
hope of acceptance threatens to leave, she simply can not take any more humiliation or
judgmental looks from the town and takes control in a way only she can understand.
Now Emily has left a town questioning, judging, and eventually feeling sorry for her.
“Poor Emily” they say. What can they do for her now? Poor Emily, she is apparently never to
marry, and the town believes she had no other choice than to go mad, proving this by saying, “So
when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even
with insanity in the family she wouldn't have turned down all of her chances if they had really

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materialized” (84). With this statement, the town believes she could have avoided insanity if only
more suitors would have emerged. Never do they take any blame for the cause of Miss Emily’s
issues or for the murder of Homer Baron.
A woman would being seen as a madwoman just because she does not marry and line up
to what a “southern lady” should be seems preposterous. Nevertheless, the people of Jefferson
think so even to the point go questioning if she will commit suicide. Part IV begins, “so the next
day we all said, ‘She will kill herself’; and we said it would be the best thing” (85). At this point
the reader has to question the sanity and motivation of the the town. This insanity is precisely
what drives Miss Emily to her state of mind that leads to the murder of Homer Baron. The end of
her life brings the shocking discovery of all that was left of her former love—his skeletal
remains.
With the life of Miss Emily Grierson haunting the town of Jefferson, Faulker takes the
reader back to that depressing town in “Dry September” to tell the story of another woman
suffering from an oppressive society and again there is pain. The very first line of the story
expresses the heavy, depressing, and mysterious backdrop of the story to come, “Through the
bloody September twilight, aftermath of sixty-two rainless days, it had gone like a fire in dry
grass: the rumor, the story, whatever it was” (Faulkner). The rumor was that Minnie Cooper has
been raped by a black man, Will Mayes, and the men talking do not appear to be shocked with
the news. They never considered that Minnie could have lied or even been attracted to the black
man.
Like the beginning of “A Rose For Emily,” the view of unmarried women in this story
appears early in the text when the barber observes about Minnie, “She’s about forty I reckon. She

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ain’t married. That’s why I don’t believe…” (Faulkner) he trails off. This statement of the barber
in defense of Will Mayes suggests that unmarried older women think all men look at them with
intentions. A young man in the shop replies with, “Won’t you take a white woman's word before
a nigger’s?” and “Do you accuse a white woman of lying?” (Faulkner) and in appearing to
defend the woman is actually putting her in an uncomfortable place where she is not able to
express her true feelings.
The next man to enter the shop is McLendon, and from his introduction to the story until
the last line when he is abusing his wife, a growing taste of bitterness for the man grows. He, too,
says to the barber, “Well, are you going to sit there and let a black son rape a white woman on
the streets of Jefferson?” (Faulkner) appearing to defend a white woman, but the end of the story
shows that he has no regard for women, even his own wife. Furthermore, his next statement
proves he does not even believe Will has raped her saying, “Happen? What the hell difference
does it make? Are you going to let the black sons get away with it until one really does
it?” (Faulkner). Instead of standing up for the woman as he professes to do, he, just as the first
young man, is putting Minnie in a position where she is pressured to lie.
As the story proceeds, the white men set out to make Will an example and “defend” the
white women of the town. After they take Will and the barber, Hawk jumps out of the car, it is
left to the reader to conclude what they do with the man having only been told that when the cars
comes back, there are only four men in the car. The suggestion of murder comes when
McLendon goes home and “…took the pistol from his hip and laid it on the table beside the bed”
(Faulkner).

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After the men come back to town, Minnie finally appears and only for a few paragraphs,
but only a few paragraphs are needed for the reader to see her mental state. The nervousness she
was feeling is made clear when she is first introduced, “Her hands trembled among the hooks
and eyes, and her eyes had a feverish look…” (Faulkner). She clearly feels guilty about what has
happened to Will suggesting that she is not the innocent victim the town has made her out to be.
Instead, the reader may believe she has either been rejected by Will or they have had mutual
feelings for one another that led to questions by the nosey southern town. In either case, Minnie
feels obligated to lie to the town and put a man’s life in danger because of the expectancy put on
her.
In both of Faulkner’s stories set in the oppressive Southern town of Jefferson, the reader
gets a glimpse of what life is like for these Southern women who are expected to conform to a
mold made for them by ghosts of the past. In these stories, one can see the consequences the
ladies face as well as others in the town such as Will Myers and Homer Baron. In both cases,
perhaps the consequences end up being their lives. Jefferson, the now tainted town of these
characters, is the epitome of societal failure. Faulkner opens the reader’s eyes to the oppression
and injustice that characterize this town with two stories of two very different women, but they
are drawn together because of a common adversary—expectancy. Without societal expectations
on Emily and Minnie, these stories could have happier endings and these women could have
enjoyed the southern town they call home.
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Works Cited

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Faulkner, William. “Dry September.” The South in Black and White. Spring 2015. Wordpress,
2015. Web. 28 Sept. 2015
- - -. “A Rose for Emily.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Ellen Thibault.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014. 82-88. Print.