Filling In The Gaps: Ideology In Faulkner’s “Dry September”

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sources that represent an ascending scale of critical emphasis on ideology in “Dry September.”
Paul Rogalus, in an article to the Explicator, states clearly that “Minnie Cooper…has accused a black man, Will Mayes, of having attacked her…”(Rogalus 211) Rogalus goes on to examine the scene in the theatre as a ‘victory lap’ for Minnie Cooper; where she parades herself through the town and then cannot contain her joyous laughter once in the movie theatre. He goes go on to acknowledge the ideological motivations of the main characters, focusing strictly on the members of the mob that kills Mayes. Rogalus picks out the most obvious traces of ideology in the text—the mob members acting on ideological notions concerning the honor of women and the denigration of blacks.
Brian Sutton responds to Rogalus’ article by increasing the scope of Faulkner’s treatment of ideology. Sutton reminds us that there are no indications in the text that Minnie Cooper actually began the rumor. He urges ...

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141) More obvious than this however is the barber’s claimed knowledge of Minnie Cooper, “I know Miss Minnie Cooper too…she’s forty, I reckon. She aint married. That’s why I don’t believe [Mayes attacked her].”(439) This claim to truth is most clearly an act of ideological assumption rather than true knowledge, because if the narrator is to be trusted, “none of them, gathered in the barber shop on that Saturday evening…knew exactly what had happened.”(439) Hawkshaw does proceed to demonstrate any actual intimate knowledge of Minnie, his opinions of her are based solely on established gender ideology concerning the behaviour of spinsters. Having taken this extra leap in expanding ...

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