qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqw

ertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwert
yuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyui
opasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopa
American Short Stories
sdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdf
Compilation

ghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghj
Tarjani sheth
klzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklz
xcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcv
bnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbn
mqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmq
wertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwe
rtyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwerty
uiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuio
pasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopas
dfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfg
American Short Stories

INDEX

Fiction – Short Stories

American History

1 THE PURLOINED LETTER – Edgar Allen Poe

2 THE CRACK UP–F Scott Fitzgerald

3 DRY SEPTEMBER – William Falkner

1
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

What is a short story?

A short story is shorter than a novel, but longer than a poem. It is usually between 1,000 and
20,000 words long. It tells a story which can usually be read quite quickly. It often concentrates
on one, central event; it has a limited number of characters, and takes place within a short
space of time.

The American short story

The short story in the U SA was strongly influenced by writers in Europe and Russia.
Washington Irving (1783-1859) was the first important American writer of short stories. When he
was Ambassador to Spain, he wrote one of his most famous collections of stories, Tales of the
Alhambra. His stories show the influence of European folktale and legend. Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-49) was another famous writer of the period. He wrote stories of mystery and horror and
some of the first detective stories.

In the late 19th century, printed magazines and journals became very popular and more and
more short stories were published. The American short story became more realistic and was
often based on direct experience. Popular authors included Theodore Dreiser, Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Mark Twain and Henry James. By the 20th century, most well-
known magazines included short stories in every issue, and the publishers paid a lot of money
for them. In 1952 Ernest Hemingway’s short story, The Old Man and the Sea, helped sell more
than five million copies of the magazine Life in just two days. The writer Jack London had a
contract with the magazine Cosmopolitan to write a story a month for a year at the rate of one
thousand dollars per story. The money paid for short stories helped many writers to survive
while they worked on their longer novels. Some writers, however, became known almost
exclusively for their short stories. This is the case of O Henry, (1862-1910) who published ten
collections of short stories in his lifetime.

2
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

The Purloined Letter

By Edgar Allan Poe
About the Author: Born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts, Edgar Allan Poe was a
prolific American short-story writer, critic, editor, and poet. His ingenious style of writing was
reflected in his fascination with mystery and the macabre. As one of the chief proponents of “art
for art’s sake” (more specifically “poem for poem’s sake”) in America, style, and construction of
language became the central concern of his criticism. As a product of his time, he was also
drawn to Romanticism. Poe’s contemporaries who wrote in a similar vein included Hawthorne,
Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. His brilliant command over
technique fostered authentic imagination among his readers. In fact, Poe subsequently inspired
the French symbolists of the late nineteenth century who shaped modern literature and art. He
has also been recognized for his contribution to the emerging genre of science fiction. American
fiction has been enriched by his tales of horror and modern detective story which is epitomized
in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, first published in Graham’s magazine in 1841. Poe’s
creativity, to a great extent, has been inspired by his own lived experiences. Born to
professional actors-Elizabeth Arnold and David, Poe was orphaned when he was a toddler. He
was shifted into the household of a Richmond merchant named John Allan. He was introduced
to classical education at a young age during his trips to Europe. He attended the University of
Virginia for a brief period of time. However, his gambling debts and inadequate financial support
compelled him to return to Richmond. Disintegrating relations with his guardian and his own
deteriorating financial condition forced him to join the army under an assumed name. During this
period of hardship, he ventured into publication with his collection Tamerlane, and Other
Poems. His negligence towards the training prompted his dismissal from the U.S. Military
Academy. Poe was now fully determined to pursue a literary career. New York City was Poe’s
subsequent stopover. Poems, his next volume of verses won appreciation. He turned to prose
and began writing for periodicals and journals. His short story titled “MS. Found in a Bottle” won
the admiration and cash reward from a Baltimore weekly. After assuming editorship of The
Southern Literary Messenger, he transformed into a refined critical reviewer which added
credibility to his literary endeavors. Although the profits were meager, Poe remained adamant.
Published in the New York Mirror, his unforgettable poem, “The Raven,” earned him national
attention. After the death of his wife, Poe became romantically involved with other women. This

3
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

libertine phase also informed his writing. His most ambitious project of producing his own journal
remained unfulfilled when he died in October 1849. Poe was an intellectual beyond his time.
The objectivity and spontaneity found in his prose speak volumes of his imaginative power. As a
storyteller, he underscored the importance of discerning the psychological make-up of the
characters. Poe insisted on literary autonomy and freedom from intellectual imperatives. His
corpus is a testimony of his aesthetics.

“The Purloined Letter”, a short story by Edgar Allan Poe is a tale of ratiocination, i.e., the
technique involving inductive and deductive reasoning. The stolen letter is the most coveted
possession. The possessor of the letter controls power dynamics. In the first part, only the royal
lady knows the contents of the letter. She, therefore, exercises more power over the man who is
the subject of the letter. By losing the letter to a certain Minister D----, she is deprived of the
control and is rendered vulnerable. By re-purloining the letter, Dupin not only settles his score
with the Minister, but he also restores the balance of power. The story forms an integral part of
Poe’s trilogy of detective stories featuring C. Auguste Dupin, a fictional protagonist detective.
Besides this story, the other two namely “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Mystery of
Marie Rogêt” foregrounded the popularity of detective fiction as a genre. After its first
appearance in The Gift for 1845 (1844), the story was widely reprinted.

4
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

Summary

Dupin’s First Encounter with the Prefect at his Apartment

The online Collins Dictionary defines the word ‘purloin’ as an act of stealing or borrowing
something without seeking permission. At the outset, the title of the story insinuates
concealment which intensifies the suspense and evokes the reader’s curiosity. The plot
commences with a Latin phrase attributed to Seneca “Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio”
meaning “Nothing is more hateful to wisdom than excessive cunning”. It would not be an 137
overstatement to consider this as the central motivation behind Poe’s composition. The plot is
set in motion in a small room in Paris where the unnamed first-person narrator is quietly sitting
with his friend C. Auguste Dupin. A regular admirer of Poe’s works would inevitably identify that
the anonymous chronicler has also narrated “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”. The anonymous
raconteur is recollecting the tragedy of the Rue Morgue and the cruel murder of Marie Rogêt
while sitting comfortably in a library located in Faubourg St. Germain. This profound meditation
is interrupted with the arrival of Monsieur G——, the Prefect of the Paris police. It is evident that
the Prefect is revisiting after a long time for a consultation regarding a “simple and odd” case.

Method of Purloining the Letter from the Lady’s Quarter

The Prefect initiates his narration with a baffling affair concerning a letter, the prime
possession, which has been stealthily removed from the royal apartments. The repartee
between Dupin and the Prefect indicates that the mystery is quite plain and self-evident. The
police are aware of the identity of the purloiner: Minister D—, a certain government official. This
“affair demanding the greatest secrecy” involves a young lady who initially possessed a letter
that contains sensitive information regarding a man who can be potentially disgraced if the
content is revealed. The method of stealing the letter has been described as “not less ingenious
than bold.” While the young lady was reading the letter for the first time, the man whom it
concerned entered the apartment. To prevent any suspicion, the lady kept the letter on the table
next to her. At this moment, the Minister arrived and his “lynx eye” quickly scanned the contents
of the letter. The conniving Minister spontaneously perceived the significance of the letter and
replaced it with his own insignificant letter which resembled the original letter of immense
importance that the lady wanted to conceal. The “the robber's knowledge of the loser's
knowledge of the robber” weakens the position of the lady upon whom the Minister D—wields
great power. The power thus acquired has been exercised by the Minister to a dangerous

5
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

extent. This has made the lady more determined to reclaim the letter. Out of despair and
desperation, the lady has entrusted the Prefect with her secret. Dupin’s curiosity is aroused and
he inquires about any attempt to search the Minister’s residence. The Prefect denies having
found any such letter during their search of the Minister’s hotel. He recounts the systematic
search conducted without the Minister’s knowledge. The Prefect reiterates the warning, “beyond
all things, I have been warned of the danger which would result from giving him a reason to
suspect our design.” He has himself ransacked D—’s hotel multiple times. This, Monsieur G—
the Prefect, did by intoxicating the servants of the Minister and purloining the key. He
abandoned the search when he was fully satisfied that the letter was not on the premises. While
admitting failure, he concedes that the Minister is a “more astute man” than the Prefect himself.
The letter could not be found hidden on the Minister’s body when he was “twice waylaid” by the
police. The Prefect mentions his willingness to search more thoroughly because the reward is
extremely generous. Dupin requests for details of the search. The Prefect assures him that the
police have examined every nook and corner of the premises without fail. Dupin makes a
suggestion that they should search the place again.

Dupin’s Second Encounter with the Prefect

A month has elapsed. Once more Dupin and the narrator are sitting together when the Prefect
arrives. While admitting his inability to locate the letter, the Prefect informs Dupin that the
reward has increased. He announces that he is willing to pay 50,000 francs to anyone who
obtains the letter. Dupin asks him to draw a check for that amount. The astounded Prefect
writes the check and Dupin hands over the letter to him. He rushes off to return the letter to its
legitimate owner whereas Dupin enters an explanation. He admits that the Parisian police are
able investigators and extremely efficient at performing their duties.

6
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

Narrative Technique in “The Purloined Letter”

The narrative unfolds from the perspective of the unnamed narrator who is omnipresent and is
privy to conversations between Dupin and the Prefect. His recollection of the Rue murders at
the beginning of the narrative creates a transitional link between the two stories. The
psychological manipulation in “The Purloined Letter” is in stark contrast with the barbaric
violence committed in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Poe’s story resembles other detective
stories in its disclosure of law enforcement’s inability to decipher the root of the crime. Even in
the previous story comprising Rue murders, the Paris police had to rely on the intellect of Dupin
to bring the case to its logical conclusion. Poe has premised Dupin’s rationale on his keen
sense of observation and composure in the face of dire situations in both the stories. 141 The
plot of “The Purloined Letter” is far from complex. The relay of flashbacks occurs outside the
narrative frame. The Prefect’s investigation of the Minister’s hotel has been labeled as
unintellectual. This observation can be deduced owing to their failure to retrieve the letter
because of their conventional monitoring. Parisian Police’s careful scrutiny overlooks simple
details. Dupin makes the assessment that the police cannot think beyond its standard
procedures. They cannot comprehend a crime from the criminal’s perspective. Dupin’s
reference to the childhood games and his analogy underscores the need to inhabit the
consciousness of the criminal. His approach to solving crime replicates the Minister’s
methodology of committing the crime. However, the reader should note that the intentions of
both are diametrically opposite. While the Minister slyly stole the letter to intimidate and
manipulate someone, Dupin employed his skill to rescue their honour. One must appreciate that
the story departs from the dominant conventions of detective fiction. While many detective
fiction writers are convinced that surveillance is integral to a detective’s investigation of a crime,
Poe rejects the idea. Dupin does not subject the Lady (queen) who has lost the letter to any
form of supervision. Critic Richard Hull has noted that “Poe's Prefect of Police is a panoptic
detective, but he fails because he lacks Dupin's poetic understanding.” (Hull 203) ‘Panoptic, h
ere, implies the panoramic monitoring for the purpose of retrieving the letter. The Paris police
conducts a thorough search without the Minister’s knowledge and keeps a close watch over his
movements. However, their archaic surveillance methods are futile in comparison with the
novelty of the detective. Indeed, Dupin develops an innovative mechanism to outmaneuver his
opponent. The fulfillment of the promise to seek revenge forms the climax of the story. Dupin’s
words inside the phony letter, translated “So baneful a scheme, if not worthy of Atreus, is worthy
of Thyestes,” are translated into action in his final act of re-purloining the purloined letter. French

7
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

dramatist Crébillon’s early-eighteenth-century tragedy Atrée et Thyeste (or Atreus and

Thyestes) encompassed the story of Thyestes who seduced the wife of his brother, Atreus. In
response to this betrayal, Atreus murdered the sons of Thyestes and served them to their father
at a feast. According to Dupin, Thyestes was worthy of this punishment because he had
committed the original crime. Atreus’s revenge was a legitimate retaliation. This comparison is
used by Dupin to morally justify his own actions. The readers also note that the purloined letter
is only a substitute for an illusion of power which neither the Lady nor the Minister actually
possesses.

Themes
Dynamics of Power

The gender hierarchy operates from the beginning of the story. The Minister abuses his power
by intimidating the lady. Owing to her gender, she cannot publicly expose the immoral Minister.
It is also likely that she may be deemed less credible than the accomplished Minister. Therefore,
she is bound to function within the established framework of the Parisian society. Her identity
and her relationships have been defined in terms of the letter. Notice how the Prefect states that
“The personage robbed” is desperate to reclaim the letter. The implied meaning of the
statement can be interpreted through a nuanced understanding of the social position of the
Lady. Despite her association with the influential class, she does not possess any true power of
her own. Similarly, even the minister is operating under the misconception that he is
indomitable. The final act of re-purloining the letter ruins his ambitions.

Use of Logic

C. Auguste Dupin has used abstract logic in “The Purloined Letter.” It is a tale of ratiocination
that prefers logic over horror as a narrative tool. Dupin successfully deduces the whereabouts of
the letter based on the Minister’s thought process. As described above, he draws inspiration
from children’s games involving imitation. In order to overcome the opponent, a child often
mimics him. This helps him to understand what the opponent is thinking. Based on the
judgment, the child wins the guessing game. Dupin investigative technique is based on simple
and unembellished analogies. He does not approve of grand or exalted methods which the
police regularly employ. He successfully traces the trajectory of the Minister’s thought and
reclaims the letter. Additionally, he also avenges his own humiliation at Vienna.

8
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

A Psychological investigation of Dupin’s methods

Dupin’s inspiration is drawn from the rustic game played by children. His innovative method is
derived from deep evaluation of the human psyche. His unparalleled observation makes his
detective skills more effective than the mundane conventional Parisian police methods. The
game of guessing involves nuanced understanding of the human mind. The expertise of the
school boy is premised on his cognitive skills to imitate and manipulate the opponent. This, the
boy does by “identification of the reasoner's intellect with that of his opponent." This simple yet
profound method has been co-opted by the detective. By predicting the actions of the Minister
based on his intentions, Dupin successfully retrieves the letter.

Characters
Auguste Dupin

C. Auguste Dupin is an expert sleuth who features in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and
“The Purloined Letter”. In the story, the expert investigator has rejected the obsolete
conventional police methods. Dupin acknowledges that traditional law enforcement measures
143 are judiciously used during an investigation by the police. But, these measures are
unoriginal and do not yield results. The Parisian police are more interested in the specifics of the
case and have lost objectivity. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” had demonstrated the
inefficacy of the police to look beyond the gruesome double homicide. Dupin is objective, cold
and skeptical. For him, the crime scene is a site of calculation. “The Purloined Letter”
remarkably illustrates Dupin’s adventurous zeal. By risking his own self, he retrieves the letter.
The Paris police were cautious of Minister D——, an influential official, Dupin remained
indifferent to the social station of the purloiner. He is extraordinarily patient in repaying the
slight. His mode of investigation thrives on intuition and personal cunning, which cannot be
institutionalized in a traditional police force.

The Police Prefect Monsieur G—,

The Prefect of the Parisian police, is a representative of the law enforcement machinery. Both
his encounters with Dupin invite sharp criticism from the detective regarding the outdated
procedures undertaken during the formal investigation. The Prefect acts as the spokesperson
for the Lady under duress in her absence. He tries to convince Dupin that he has thoroughly
searched the premises of the culprit Minister. Yet, Dupin remains unconvinced. It is so because

9
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

the standard investigation by the police lacks imagination and proves ineffective. The Prefect is
unable to think outside the box. His enterprise is limited to codified rules and regulations. Only
Dupin can function freely and for that reason, the Prefect seeks his help.

10
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

The Crack Up

By F Scott Fitzgerald
“The Crack-Up” is a three-part autobiographical essay by Fitzgerald that describes the mental
breakdown that he suffers after a certain point of time in his life. His three essays are an attempt
to, understand as well explain his mental condition, then identify the several causes, and finally
discuss the changes he makes in his own self in order to survive the depressing phase of the
‘Crack-Up’.

Crack up

The first essay begins with an account of two kinds of blows that affect a person’s life. One that
impacts immediately and the other that makes its impact felt only when it too late. It is these
blows that define a man’s life. He gives a brief account of his youth and writes that things were
fine when he was young. It was easy to deal with the problems of life. However as years
progressed Fitzgerald realizes that he had “prematurely cracked” (Fitzgerald 2), that is, due to
“too much anger” and “too many tears” his nervous reflexes were giving away and he felt that he
was ‘cracked’. This realization came with a sense of alienation and loneliness. He confesses
that except a few things like Katherine Hepburn’s image on screen, children up to a certain age
and doctors he could not stand anything or anyone. The essay ends with an excerpt of an
interview he had with one of his critics who, in order to lift the spirits of Fitzgerald tries to tell him
about the problems and challenges she faced in her life and how she managed to overcome
them. However Fitzgerald informs his readers that though he was impressed with her vitality but
unfortunately could borrow none of her energy.

Pasting it together

The second essay titled as “Pasting it Together” begins with a realization that his narratives of
self-revelation are different from others as they do not end on any positive note. In this essay
Fitzgerald gives an account of the reasons that caused his mind to face such a breakdown. The
first blow as Fitzgerald himself accepts was his loss of the Triangle Club and other offices (and
eventually also a year) in Princeton University due to an illness; the second blow was the tragic
love story “doomed for lack of money”. Along with these personal defeats, Fitzgerald had to face

11
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

the plight of witnessing a new world order replacing the older one. To see the novel being
replaced by the movies was obsessively painful for Fitzgerald. All these experiences together
compelled his mind to get fatally disturbed and thereby “Crack-Up”. Fitzgerald in the course of
the essay realizes that for a longtime he had depended on various people for intellectual,
aesthetic and personal support and assistance. This created was a crisis in his concept of self
and identity, as he felt, “there was not an “I” anymore”. The essay ends with a sense of quest
that Fitzgerald undertakes in order to find his sense of individuality and identity which he
believed once existed.

Handle with care

The third essay “Handle with Care” gives an account of the consequences that Fitzgerald’s life
and personality undergoes due to the ‘Crack-Up’. In order to survive Fitzgerald realized the
need to have a ‘clean break’. This clean break as makes the past cease to exist and thus, he
decides to continue being an author but he would no more be a person. The rest of the essay is
an account of how Fitzgerald gets himself ready to become the ‘writer only’ who cares for
nothing but his own profits. There is a detailed description of how he works on his voice and
smile that will make this new persona of his, more effective and believable. The essay ends with
a sarcastic comment that tells the reader that as he imbibes this new personality he becomes
someone who is materialistic and opportunist to such an extent that he can “even lick your
hand” if you throw him a bone with enough meat on it.

Context

The Jazz Age

Fitzgerald named the roaring decade of the twenties - “The Jazz Age”. In his writings he
reflected the trends and conventions of his contemporary times and his works came to
symbolize the Jazz Age. A fine description of this era can be seen in his Echoes of the Jazz Age
when he wrote, “It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it
was an age of satire”. He was also considered a member of the “Lost Generation” of 1920s.
Fitzgerald’s works include four finished novels, This Side of Paradise (1920), The Beautiful and
the Damned (1922), The Great Gatsby (1925) and Tender is the Night (1934). A fifth one The
Love of the Last Tycoon (1941) was left unfinished and was published posthumously. Being a
professional writer, Fitzgerald, like several of his contemporaries, published many short stories
in newspapers and magazines like, The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s Weekly and Esquire.

12
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

He also sold his stories and novels to Hollywood Studios. His most popular work in the present
times is The Great Gatsby which was published in `1925.

It is this that forms a potent background for the three essays – “The Crack-Up”, “Pasting It
Together” and “Handle with Care” - that were published in Esquire magazine in 1936 under the
title “The Crack-Up”. The essays that clearly gave a detailed insight into authors mind while he
was going through a phase of acute depression and hopelessness were poorly received by the
critics and contemporary authors. Fitzgerald died in 1940. His last novel, The Love of the Last
Tycoon was left unfinished and was published posthumously in 1941. The first phase of reviving
the true worth of his work that depicted the American sensibilities of the ‘Roaring Twenties’ as
well as the phase that followed the ‘Great Depression’ began in the latter half of the Forties and
by the 1960s Fitzgerald was well recognized as one of the most important authors of the
Twenties and even Thirties who chronicled several contrasting aspects of the decades.

13
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

‘Dry September’

By William Faulkner
The ‘short story,’ a form pioneered by Washington Irving, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorn
and Edgar Allan Poe, is seen as a genre defining moment in the history of literary development
in America. Its pivotal place in the American literary imagination was such that Frank O’Connor
called it America’s “national art form”.

William Faulkner not only adds to this “national art form” but also gives it its regional American-
ness. Many of his stories are reminders of the past, particularly the antebellum, the remnants of
which still inform and define the contours of the present day society. What makes his writings
still resonate in our present times is his succinct understanding of the modern condition of our
human lives. In commenting on what constitutes good writing, he said, in his Banquet speech
for the Nobel Prize in Literature, that it was ‘the problems of the human heart in conflict with
itself which alone can make good writing.’ It is such a precarious condition of conflict that he
recognizes in his own life. Necessitated by his ancestral lineage and his own politics of race, it
makes itself visible in the tensions of race and gender and which find a literary expression in his
stories.

About the Author

Born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897, William Cuthbert Faulkner was a
prolific American writer whose literary genius resulted in many novels, short stories and poetry.
The protean nature of his literary output is in itself a testament to his fecund imagination as a
writer whose prolific contribution can also be measured in terms of the many huge recognitions
he received in the form of Nobel Prize in Literature, and the two Booker Prizes in his lifetime.
With a vast and varied corpus of literary works that he wrote and published, much of which he
produced in the 1920s and the 1930s, the years of Southern renaissance, he defined the
lineaments of what is known as Southern literature with its own distinctive topoi. In all, he
transposes the racial concerns of the Deep South in which the latter is deeply implicated with its
long and complex history of prosperity and violence, onto the imaginary landscape of

14
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

Yoknapatawpha. This fictive topography then becomes the Faulknerian site whereupon he
explores questions of race and gender among other things. In his role as a writer, his expansive
imagination was not untouched by the social and political realities of his day and age.
Consequently, he transformed the lived realities of a Southern life that he witnessed from so
close, and also knew through an association with his African American nanny, Caroline Barr,
into materials for his fiction. In and through a fictive universe of his own creation, he would
explore the processes of racialization, and its reinforcement in everyday practices, and the ways
in which racial prejudice and sexism fueled a system of injustice, exploitation and vigilantism.

Contexts: Historical and Cultural

Some important historical and cultural terms and events as useful markers to understand the
context and legacies of slavery and racism in America. Knowing more about the historical
context in which the story is located- postbellum American South- will help appreciate the text
better. These multi-layered contexts form a definitive backdrop to the larger story of African
Americans, and the white’s treatment of them in America and in “Dry September” in particular.

Closely tied to historical developments were certain black stereotypes and white myths that
were part of the racist fabric of the nation that helped perpetuate violence and racism in
America, more so in the Deep South.

The Old South Myth

Built on the back of black labour and slave trade the agrarian economy in the American South
flourished which provided for the luxurious and laid back lives of its plantation owners and slave
masters. The idealized South also sustained certain cultural myths that were projected as its
core values. Adding to the idealized notions of white supremacy were some key gendered
conceptions namely the white goddess concept and the Southern gentleman. However, with the
abolition of slavery which demanded a realignment of the traditional order the Southerners,
caught in the historical flux, found it difficult to reconcile to the new emergent order.
Consequently, they ended up reviving and reinforcing some of the cultural and gendered myths,
popularly known as the Southern myths or the Old South myths, only to consolidate their own
fractured selves, and re-establish themselves as superior to the African Americans.

The White Goddess concept

15
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

One such white mythology deeply embedded in the Deep South was the “white goddess
concept”; an idea whereby the white people claimed that a Southern white woman could not lie,
and therefore would not engage in deceit. That this alibi becomes a touchstone of virtue for the
white females in the American South, however, comes with a price that is paid by the black
lives. That white Southern women, who by such logic become paragons of virtue and up-
righteousness, would often use this to implicate black people was no secret as the infamous
Scottsboro Trials of 1930s proved. In this classic case of white privilege and racist antagonism
toward the African American people in the Jim Crow South, the case has two white girls who
implicate nine young African American teenage boys on false charge of raping them while on a
train journey, and a lynch mob demanding justice on their own terms. It resulted in protracted
court cases, biased judgments and unfair trials for the accused Africans Americans. It can safely
be argued that it was the white man’s revulsion at the prospect of miscegenation between white
women and black men that helped sustain the myth of the white goddess.

The Southern Gentleman

Like the white Southern women wrapped in the Southern belle mythology, the Southern
gentlemen too had a distinct white masculinity to uphold. The Southern gentleman embodied a
cultural ideal. Emmeline Gross defines him thus; ‘(a) ristocratic at heart, Victorian in his
manners, the Southern man was characterized by autonomy, self-discipline, and integrity,
combining all the elements of older chivalric codes with an acute sense of private and caste
power’. This they sought to fiercely maintain even in the Post-Reconstruction era which 150
tested the chivalric code of conduct which governed the white Southern men. Faced with the
challenges of the post-Civil War, they suffered from a crisis of white masculinity.

Summary :William Faulkner’s “Dry September”

Published in 1931, evokes an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty looming large for the black
population as in the case of Scottsboro boys. The narrative unfolds the workings of a prejudiced
white mob-mentality seeking instant justice which, here in the story is, fueled by a rumour.
Though never made clear but only suggested obliquely, the rumour is, most likely, an
accusation of sexual violation. A (rape) charge has been leveled by a white spinster, Miss
Minnie Cooper, against a black watchman named Will Mayes for whose blood the white mob of
Jefferson is baying.

Section I

16
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

The first section of “Dry September” sets the tone and tenor of the story. Set in the Southern
town of Jefferson, the story opens on a hot September evening in a salon that is animated only
by ‘the rumour, the story, whatever it was’. Even though nobody knew exactly what had
transpired between ‘Miss Minnie Cooper and a Negro’, opinions have been formed by the
occupants in the barbershop. Except for the barber, Henry Hawkshaw, the others are almost
convinced of the truth of the matter. It’s another story that nobody wants or attempts to find out
the truth. Any suggestion that Will Mayes, the accused Negro, is innocent, and the white
woman, Miss Minnie Cooper, might be lying is met with condescension, insult and veiled threats
such as “you damn nigger lover” or “Do you accuse a white woman of lying?”. Notwithstanding
the heated arguments among the white majority of townsmen who are gathered in the shop, the
barber, himself a white Jeffersonian, takes it upon himself to defend Will Mayes. He insists on
Will’s innocence, and attempts to convince his detractors, who seem to be hounding for a black
man’s blood, not to jump the gun. This gathering of a mob that seems only interested in
pursuing quick justice for their felt wrong, lacks a leader and that vacuum is soon enough filled
by McLendon, the war hero. He quickly succeeds in exploiting the situation, and manages to
leave with his ‘army’ of men to set things right, to avenge the black man’s alleged insult and
violation of a white woman. His difference from Henry Hawkshaw who is his polar opposite is
underlined when the narrator tells us ‘(t)hey looked like men of different races’. This section
ends with Henry Hawkshaw running closely on the heels of McLendon in a desperate attempt to
save Will Mayes, and the two barbers who remain in the shop pondering over the (im) possibility
of Will Mayes attacking Miss Minnie Cooper.

Section II

This section, a window to her past, introduces Miss Minnie Cooper to the readers who is so far
presented through others’ opinions about her. She is already, in the town’s opinion, somebody
who entertains delusional thoughts about herself with her ‘man scare’ stories. In Section II, we
find her in the grip of ennui relegated as she is ‘into adultery by public opinion’. She comes
across as a languishing body who is conscious of her past when she was the toast of the town
in her days of youth. However, unlike her contemporaries she has not been able to move onto
other womanly roles that society expects of women nor can she come to terms with the fact of
her ageing. She spends her idle days sitting in the porch, would go downtown to watch movies
and so on. Twelve years ago, she had a short lived affair with a forty year old bank cashier that
once again brought her into notice, primarily for two reasons. First, the affair renewed her
desirable self, and second, because she had the ‘first motoring bonnet and the veil the town

17
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

ever saw.’ Almost a decade later, she once again finds herself a castaway with no male
attention. Rather, her feeble attempts at presenting herself as still attractive by way of her
dressing and attempting to join in the company of her young “cousins” makes her an oddity and
subject to salacious gossip.

Section III

With section III we move into the action scene as it were. Once again the gothic atmospherics
are stressed upon. The recurring motifs of dust, cloud, fog, the waning moon and “dry hissing”
collectively add to the sepulchral quality, and intensifies the tension in the moment. McLendon
with his cohorts is at the ice plant where Will Mayes was a night watchman. In the darkness of
the night, they are here to apprehend and “kill him, kill the black son”. In a dramatic sequence of
events the drama unfolds where they drag and handcuff him, and finally they put him in a car.
Even though he pleads innocence and Hawkshaw still argues Will’s case, the blood thirsty gang
of white men refuse to pay any heed to their pleadings. In the claustrophobic space of the car,
McLendon hits Will Mayes. And then something happens that makes the barber, Hawkshaw,
jump out of the car. Enveloped in the darkness of the night and the dust, this section closes with
McLendon and his men, except Butch, returning in their car, and a little later, the barber limping
his way back into the town. The narrative neither depicts nor relays what they did to Will Mayes
though the curtains suddenly fall on him. Nonetheless, we are sure Will Mayes has been killed
just as we are sure of his innocence, and Miss Minnie Cooper’s lies.

Section IV

This section stands out among the others for two things. One, as an absolute space of white
presence with ‘not a Negro on the square. Not one’. Two, the feverish excitement that it
generates in Minnie and her friends as well as the young white men who now do take note of
her presence. The now fully reclaimed space of white is animated by an excitement that finds its
parallel in the ‘picture show’ such that it looked like ‘a miniature fairyland’. In this fairyland which
is a zone of fantasy, Miss Minnie Cooper is back to being the center of attention. Her friends
seek a vicarious pleasure in asking Minnie the details about it, the molestation, even while they
doubt the alleged rape. It ends on a note of untrammeled excitement such that Minnie becomes
hysterical, and is brought back home by her women friends whose eyes aglitter with the fantasy
of miscegenation.

Section V

18
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

The shortest of all, this section unlike the previous ones is not set in a public space like the
barbershop, or the ice plant or the square, but rather within an intimate space of home. That this
section focuses on a private space of home, and that of McLendon’s, is interesting. What is
more intriguing is that it ends not with Minnie or Will Mayes whose story it seemingly is. On the
contrary, the narrative ends with the image of McLendon coming back to his ‘birdcage’, and
physically assaulting his wife. Exhausted, he stood panting and the weather and the cosmos
once again take precedence.

Themes, Motifs & Symbolism

William Faulkner in his short story ‘Dry September’ explores the racial and sexual delusions of
the white race in the town of Jefferson which is symptomatic of emergent anxieties in the wake
of economic and social restructuring of the American South. The racial delusion is amply
evident in the commonly felt sense of supremacy of the white race, a ‘commonsense’ that has
been destabilized in the changing times of the post-Civil War. The new laws and constitutional
amendments meant to empower the blacks have cast a shadow on the racial fantasy of white
race hegemony. In such a context of a society in flux that is witnessing some of the most
unprecedented changes, racial prejudices join hands with gender biases and sexual
insecurities. This in turn leads to reinforcing of new forms regulating racial and social codes.
Thus collectively, they perpetrate the belief in their status as the supreme and sacrosanct race.
Broadly speaking, its thematic issues can be read along the axis of race and gender. In
particular, it is about the crisis of white masculinity. In this intertwined narratives of race and
gender, some of the other equally important issues and motifs that need further interrogation are
as follows:

Ambiguity

‘Dry September’ opens in a salon with a discussion about ‘the rumor, the story, whatever it was’.
The ambivalence with which the narrative starts becomes one of the most defining conditions of
their existence as well as a trope that Faulkner employs in his narrative of racism in the
American South. Even when the rumor is spelt out a little later by McLendon as ‘a black son
rap(ing) a white woman on the streets of Jefferson’, the air of ambiguity that surrounds the
allegation is never lifted off. Rather, the narrative abounds with textual moments that suggest
that townsmen believe in the rumor in spite of themselves. For instance, when a third man in the
salon asks, “Did it really happen?” McLendon pounces on him to ask, “Happen? What the hell
difference does it make? Are you going to let the black sons get away with it until one really

19
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

does it?”’ The story resounds with similar sentiments of disbelief interlaced with relishing of the
salacious gossip that echoes till the end. Minnie’s friends ask each other ‘“Do you suppose
anything really happened?”, their eyes darkly aglitter, secret and passionate.’ In the gap that lies
between the rumor and any certainty of it is what produces the thrill and pleasure and use value
(of the rumor) for each member of the white race. The air of un-believability that surrounds the
rumor does nothing to demolish it or to even imagine a possibility for a fair trial which could have
established the veracity of the matter. Even though Henry Hawkshaw, a white barber who is the
voice of reason in the story constantly maintains his firm conviction in the innocence of Will
Mayes who has been accused of raping the white woman Minnie Cooper, insists – “I don’t
believe Will Mayes did it… I know Will Mayes”, there is nothing that can stop the white men
gathered in his shop from forming a gang that would go on to lynch Will Mayes. For them, there
is absolutely no difference between fact and fiction, and the ambiguity allows them to set their
own narrative to it and use it to justify their own purposes.

Interracial Intimacy

In cases involving miscegenation the ‘white goddess’ concept was used as a deterrent against
interracial carnal desire. For a racist mind, it was hard to imagine coloured men as objects of a
white woman’s erotic desires. That this myth informs their defense is revealing given that the
various moments of such utterances almost become a refrain in the story. “Do you accuse a
white woman of lying?” “Won’t you take a white woman’s word before a nigger’s?” This implies
that in any narrative of interracial intimacy between black man and white woman, it was
assumed that it was the black man who willfully forced himself upon the white woman because
the latter would never consent to such possibilities of intimate encounters. By the same stroke, it
also meant that there was therefore no need to look for “facts” because “What the hell difference
does it make?” when a white woman could not be 154 accused of lying which automatically
shifted the onus of the lying/offence onto the black man. Further, a focus on the ways in which
the men respond to the rumor and to McLendon’s exhortations prove that ‘these men are as
much prisoners of the old traditions as is Minnie Cooper’ (Volpe 64). McLendon’s extreme
disregard for corroborative evidence and the refusal to acknowledge a willful design in the
repetitive pattern in Minnie’s accusations is also an indication that suggests that the punitive
action that is so vigorously sought for is more to preempt any future possibility of any form of
contact between the white woman and the “Negroes” than to deliver ‘justice’ to the ostensibly
sexually violated woman. Conclusively, in his short story, “Dry September”, Faulkner presents a
critique of race and racism through the trope of ambiguity and rumor. By dramatizing the

20
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

process and the aftereffects of mob lynching within the framework of race and gender, he lays
bare its unwarranted ramifications for all those involved as well as the threat of miscegenation
and black man’s sexuality.

Doubt- “rumor, the story, whatever it was”

A recurrent note of doubt interrupts the narrative of “Dry September”. It not only introduces an
element of suspicion regarding the nature and validity of the accusation, but also makes one
think about the fairness of the mob violence as incited by McLendon. In addition, it also betrays
an anxiety on part of the white men to make a point about the kind of racial and sexual power
they can wield over the blacks. The refusal to go for a judicial process of trial and to insist on the
truth of the case in the face of an absolute lack of concrete evidence just made it easier for them
to sacrifice Will Mayes at the altar of racial and gender insecurities. They could thereby reassure
themselves of the relevance of their existence but more importantly of their physical body that is
both a site for erotic fantasies as well as a source of immense anxiety in the light of its disuse or
abandonment. A sense of Minnie-as-discarded lies in other’s neglect of her who is left to
languish in the absence of any male attention, and McLendon’s strong physique suggestive of
his warrior like leadership quality, being a commander of troops in the past, again is languishing
for it has no value in the post war Jefferson. What Faulkner thereby also manages to do is to
establish the innocence of Will Mayes despite the presence of ambiguity looming large in the
story. It is precisely in the lack of any conclusive evidence in the story to confirm the allegation,
and yet a stubborn insistence to treat Will Mayes as the culprit that his innocence is hinted at.
Among other reasons why impenetrability vis-à-vis the trope of rumour is deliberately
maintained is because what Faulkner is here most concerned with is not in the actuality of the
incident but in exploring the making of a mob psyche and the ways in which it seeks to justify its
skewed notions of justice through violence. A vicious sense of revenge that informs the mob
mentality here is telling on the ways in which it seeks false ruses to display its aggressive
masculine self. That Faulkner’s interest here lies in exploring the white anxieties and racism in
the American South through an exploration of the mob mentality can be further substantiated in
the fact that the lynching/ killing scene is not presented in the story. To insist on that here in this
particular scene is to miss the larger perspective on the workings of a racist mindset that
Faulkner seems to highlight. And that they succeed in driving home this point is evident when
the readers are told ‘“There’s not a Negro on the square. Not one.”’ In the final analysis, it is the
ambiguity that makes possible this double take on rumor where disbelief and vicarious
enjoyment of it can coexist with manufactured consent through people who were ‘attacked,

21
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

insulted frightened’ into believing it. It is by maintaining the ambiguity that in the name of
defending female honor, the Southern men settle their own ambivalences about their manhood
and role in a changing social economy.

Lynching

In the story “Dry September”, the act of lynching has a two pronged effect. One, it helps them
reassert and ‘activate’ their white masculinity that links sex and violence with power. Two it also
works effectively to remind the black community of its position as an outcaste, and hence the
need to keep themselves away from common spaces of interracial contacts. This in turn will
allow for a re-activation of interest in and from the other sex of their own race. Both sexual and
racial atrophy is thereby sought to be contained thus. The urgency with which McLendon
appoints himself as the vigilante leader is in itself a telling commentary on the subtext of
lynching and racial hatred. It is in the act of lynching that the thus sanitized space will allow for a
shaken white masculinity and an obsolescent female sexuality to make a comeback. It is in this
space purged of any black presence that white desirability is reactivated. Experiencing a
renewal of self, Minnie arouses the interest of the town such that ‘even the young men lounging
in the doorway tipped their hats and followed with their eyes the motion of her hips and legs
when she passed’ reminiscent of her earlier days when she ‘(rode) upon the crest of the town’s
social contemporaries.’ Her delight in the excitement that she now sends rippling through the
crowd is prolonged in the notice that other gentleman too take note of when they marvel, “Do
you see?”

Crisis of white masculinity

As the analysis above suggests, the white men are victims of gendered notions of masculinity
that places a premium on certain expectations and ideals of men at which they fail miserably.
Arguing for a focal shift on white masculinity I suggest that it is in his characterization of
McLendon that Faulkner dramatizes the crisis of white masculinity. A preponderance on the
weather conditions in the story is what obfuscates the issue of the crisis of white masculinity in
“Dry September”. As a result, this aspect is hardly commented upon in critical studies of
Faulkner’s works. That Faulkner chooses to end “Dry September” with the ‘war hero’ returning
home where his wife awaits his arrival, to provide a glimpse of the marital world of the man, and
a failed one at that, is a good enough indicator to argue that white masculinity and its failure is
also the focus of Faulkner. Had it been only about an exploration of racial anxieties, the
concluding section would have had nothing to offer and would have been extraneous to the

22
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

story. It is not only McLendon who suffers from such anxieties but the townspeople too. Though
they might require a bit of coaxing and cajoling they too are quick enough to allay them in the
only way known to them that is through violence. Fear becomes a governing force in their lives.
In switching over to McLendon’s side despite their suspicions about it, the fear of not conforming
to standards of masculinity is as strong an impulse as is the idea of racial purity. In his failure to
relive his earlier self as a warrior McLendon ends up more exasperated.

Narrative Technique

In so far as narrative technique is concerned, Faulkner stands out for two reasons. One, in the
vein of modernist writers’ he usually employs the stream of consciousness technique in most
158 of his works to give his readers an insight into his characters minds. Two, he uses quite
long sentences with elaborate and complex syntax which is seen as typically Faulknerian. “Dry
September” is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator who does not let out as
much. For instance the narrator makes it clear that no one in the barbershop "knew exactly what
had happened”. Though not an omniscient narrator, he is also not an unreliable narrator. He
chooses to work with suggestion as it drives home the point more powerfully. Oscillating
between narrations of the present and the past, the narrator is objective in his telling. He
recounts events and the characters’ past without passing judgment.

Characters

Minnie Cooper

Miss Minnie Cooper now in her late thirties was once upon a time the toast of the town.
However, in an attempt to re-live the past she spends her day in the porch appearing in ‘a lace
trimmed boudoir cap’, or kills her time by going downtown with her friends in her ‘new voile
dresses’ and striking bargain for the sake of it. While she was a nubile beauty she was much
sought after until her friends and the social circle became class conscious. Unlike her friends
she could not come to terms with the reality of her aging ‘haggard look’. With ‘furious
repudiation of truth in her eyes’ she still desired to be in parties. It was in a party when it hit her
hard that she stopped socializing. That her friends’ children called her “aunty” proved to be a
cruel reminder. Nevertheless she found solace in the myths of ‘popular Aunt Minnie” that she
was in her younger years. None of which stopped her from finding a lover, albeit fleetingly, and
who got her the attention she desired with his ‘first automobile in the town’. And twelve years
later when she is castaway as an adulteress living a solitary life, the Cashier would still visit the

23
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

town on the eve of the Christmas. Though she does not seem to have any lover as of now, she
is still supplied with whisky ‘by a youth, a clerk at the soda fountain’ who believes ‘she’s entitled
to a little fun.’ Amidst all this emptiness and a vague attempts to enact the past Minnie continues
with her evening outings with young “cousins”. She tries her best to appear her best though the
‘lounging men did not even follow her with their eyes anymore.’ All this however changes in
Section IV when she becomes the center of attention so much so that she has a fit and has to
be taken home. Miss Minnie Cooper whom we see in Section II and Section IV, is the one who
has apparently made allegations against Will Mayes of having attacked her. It is interesting to
note that the exact nature of violence is not named. That it is only a rumour that she has
possibly levelled this charge is constantly affirmed by her previous ‘man scare’ stories. Also, it is
McLendon who labels it as “rape” for the first time, and nothing in the text undercuts that
assumption. With not a single utterance from her despite being at the heart of the rumour,
Faulkner points to the silencing of women across cultures as the concluding section of the story
also establishes.

Will Mayes

Will Mayes, a black man, works in an ice plant. He is the one whom Miss Minne Cooper has
apparently accused of having raped her. Despite his centrality to the narrative as the main
accused, his corporeality hardly occupies much textual space in the story. The reader meets
him only briefly in the third section of the story where McLendon along with his cohorts have
managed to kidnap him. The closest we get to him is in the claustrophobic space of a car where
he is handcuffed and pressed from all sides. His very limited presence serves to point to many
things. One, his physical marginalization within the narrative serves to suggest his position of
marginality in the white dominated racist South. That he is not allowed an opportunity for
defense, and any suggestion of his innocence carries scant regard in this xenophobic society is
a mirror of the society where the blacks were not merely victimized and their voice suppressed
but also whose presence was sought to be obliterated.

McLendon

McLendon, the war hero, is the main catalytic agent in the narrative. The very description of his
physique and his posture serves to present him as a poster boy, the white male protector of the
Southern belle. His commandeering skills help him to quickly mobilize the white folk into a group
with himself as their self-appointed leader. Leading from the front like he did in France, during
the war time, he seizes upon the present opportunity to teach the Negro a lesson. Without

24
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

specifying what exactly he is going to do to Will Mayes, he engineers a lynch mob that would
not ‘let a black son rape a white woman on the streets of Jefferson”, or “let the black sons get
away with it until one does it’. More particularly, his naming of the charge against Will Mayes as
“rape”, also reminds the readers of the white man’s fears of miscegenation and interracial
intimacies. Ultimately, in the final section, we find him manhandling his wife; an act which is in
contradiction to his professed aim of protecting the white women. The farce of protecting white
women is, thus, exposed in his treatment of his wife whom he physically abuses even without
any provocation. The last image of him as a ‘panting’ animal that ‘hunted furiously’, then, also
exposes the fragility of the normative masculinity that is cracking beneath its surface.

Henry Hawkshaw

The barber, Henry Hawkshaw, is the voice of reason who asserts Will Mayes’s innocence. That
he is white, but unlike the townspeople he still argues in favour of a black man helps complicate
the larger picture of race. Through him Faulkner suggests that even in the deeply racist South,
there are still a few white men who will stand by reason and morality. The author does this not
to downplay racism but to present a more complex understanding of race 160 relations. In
addition, he suggests, through Hawkshaw, how one deliberately does not pay heed to one’s
conscience.

The Bank Cashier

The Bank Cashier, a minor figure even though white, suggests male virility. He was Miss Minnie
Cooper’s partner in the past when she would ‘ride upon the crest of the town’s social life’. His
associations with changing female partners, car, money and affluence underscore a patriarchal
culture which allows a man to celebrate his desirability and virility but which in a woman is seen
as a vice, and reflective of her loose morality and easy availability. That the town is judgmental
of Minnie’s actions, and has relegated her out of its memory is self evident; perhaps a result of

her flaunting her sexuality. But the same treatment is not reserved for the bank cashier who is
no different from Minnie in capitalizing on his physical charms and privilege. Rather, he is still,
even after so many years, welcome to the town and is a kindof-celebrated figure even while
Miss Minnie is languishing in her advancing years, and seems to be living a delusional life
desirous of male attention.

25
Study Guide by TDS
American Short Stories

Questions

I) Discuss three phases of American short story.

II) Examine 'The Purloined Letter' as the perfectly balanced detective story

III) Discuss Poe's definition of short stories and its influence on the subsequent short story writers.

IV) Contrast the Roaring Twenties with Great Depression of the Thirties.

V) The Crack up is an account of drastic consequences of a social change on the minds of contemporary
individuals.- Elaborate

VI) Comment on the theme of White Goddess and Southern Gentleman with reference to "Dry
September'

VII) Discuss the theme of urban growth and prosperity of Jazz Age as reflected in the Crack Up.

IX) Discuss the character of Minnie Cooper

X) Provide a critical analysis of Crack Up in light of the unfortunate life of F Scott Fitzgerald.

XI) Discuss theme of power hunger and and symbolism of letter in 'The Purloined Letter'

XII) Comment on setting and Action in Faulkner's 'Dry September'

_________________________________________________________________________

Tarjani Sheth

Department of English

Uka Tarsadia University

26
Study Guide by TDS