william faulkner-dry september威廉福克纳 干旱的九月 英文版.docx

VIII.Dry September:William Faulkner’s short story "Dry September" deals with a lynching of a black man, Will Mayes, wrongly accused of attacking a white woman, Minnie Cooper. But Mayes is not the only victim in this short story. Minnie Cooper is also a victim in "Dry September." Minnie is as much a victim of the social standards and practices of southern society as Willie Mayes is. ?While "Dry September" may seem to be just a story about how a black man is wrongly condemned to death, it is also about the moral and social demise of a woman who is no longer valued in society. Minnie Cooper lives in a society that has no more place for old maids than it has for black men, and that makes her just as much a victim as Willie Mayes. Minnie had no choice but to create a lie because, "Minnie’s world, offering no alternatives, encouraged Minnie to consent to, even create, her own victimization in the interests of consolidating white control" ?The structure of the story itself points to the importance of Minnie Cooper. She is dealt with more in the text of "Dry September" than Willie Mayes is. "Dry September" is divided up into five sections. The first section takes place in the barbershop, where the men decide to get Willie back for "raping" Minnie. The second section deals directly with Minnie, her life, what she does, and how she is being ignored by society. The third section deals with the lynching of Willie. However, in this section Willie’s thoughts and feelings are not made known to us. Instead the readers get an account of what happens up to the point where Hawshaw jumps out of the car. The fourth section again deals with Minnie, how she is acting, what she is wearing, and how people act toward her. The fifth section deals with McLendon beating his wife, which not only mimics the violent death of Willie, but also suggests the helplessness and vulnerability of women in this white, male-dominated society. Minnie Cooper clearly is an important character due to the amount of material written about her. Two fifths of the story deal directly with her. Only one fifth of the story deals directly with Willie, and in that section his character is not developed at all. Minnie is a victim in this story because there are two sections of the story explaining what her character is like and why she is ?suffering so much. Minnie is a victim of her gender, while Willie is a victim of his race. Noel Polk in Faulkner and Gender, states that, "Dry September" is "more centrally concerned with gender than with race". It is obvious that Willie is a victim, for he is the one who is murdered. But Minnie is also?a victim; although she does not die physically, she has for a long period been dead to society.?"She was the last to realize that she was losing ground. One evening at a party she heard a boy and two girls, all schoolmates, talking. She never accepted another invitation" We are told that there was a short time in her life when she was part of society—part of the crowd: "When she was young she had a slender, nervous body and a sort of hard vivacity which had enabled her for a time to ride upon the crest of the town’s social life ?Since being sexually attached or sexually attractive was so important to women, Minnie’s diminished status is clearly revealed when she is no longer able to hold any man’s interest. This feeling compels her even more to falsely accuse Willie. After Minnie accuses Willie of rape, she receives attention from the men in the town again. FaulknerA man who live through the Realistic Period and Modernism Period, and “the man himself never stood taller than five feet, six inches tall, but in the realm of American literature, William Faulkner is a giant.” He’s known as a Mississippi writer by his works.William Faulkner is recognized by many as America’s greatest writer of prose fiction of the 20th century and he’s also a Nobel Prize-winning novelist of 1949. He was born on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi. He was named after his grandfather William Clark Falkner who was the author of a popular romantic novel called “The White Rose of Memphis. Faulkner grew up in an old southern family, just before his fifth birthday, his family moved to Oxford, Mississippi, during that time, he met his childhood sweetheart, Estelle Oldham, and his lifetime friend Phil Stone who encouraged him to write. At the Oxford High School, he played the football as a quarterback and suffered a broken nose. And soon, he dropped out of school at age of 15. Later, he tried to join the U.S Army Air Force but was denied because he was too short.In July 1918, impelled by dreams of martial glory and by despair at a broken love affair, he joined Canadian Royal Air Force. On his application to the RAF, he lied about a few things, including his birth date, place, and added a “U” to his real last name “Falkner”, believing it would look more British. During the World War I, but he never foug。