In all stories the details of setting play an important role in captivating the reader's attention, and the story Dry September is no exception. The ignorance and violence of humanity during a time of high racial tension in the Southern United States is portrayed in Faulkner's Dry September through the development of setting. The setting helps the plot unfold and gives Faulkner's readers a better understanding of what life in the Southern United States was like during this time. The character's actions, the suffocation of the people, and the barber's poised razor are all important parts of this story's setting.
             The setting in Dry September greatly reflects the lives of the people in Jefferson, a small town in the Southern United States. In this town, there is a sense of underlying dirtiness, as if the people here are trying to cover something up. At the barbershop for example, "the ceiling fan stirred, without freshening it, the vitiated air, sending back upon them, in recurrent surges of stale pomade and lotion, their own stale breath and odors." Everyone at the barbershop knows something dirty is going to take place, and they just cannot seem to cover it up themselves. The heat, and the aftermath of sixty-two rainless days, has affected the people of the town is such a way that they can barely even think straight anymore. One line states, "It's the durn weather, it's enough to make a man do anything, even to her." This shows that the drought has really affected what people do, as there is hardly any hesitance in their actions.
             The setting in this story is breathless, there is no freedom in breathing in this town. The people here are suffocated by one another and by the ignorance and violence that goes on in the town. You are on constant watch by the people of the town, anything that you do, is noticed and judged. The air here is described as "flat and dead," ...