Chapter 1 Summary

Faulkner's masterful novel about racism, religious intolerance, and the plight of women in Depression-era Mississippi opens with Lena's story. This poor, barefoot and very pregnant woman evokes a touching image as she walks along the dusty road, carrying her shoes so that they will not be dirtied. Perfect strangers have taken in the sight of this poignant, proud and pitiful woman, and have chosen to help her out as she searches for the father of her child.

As the novel opens, Lena sits beside the road, watching a wagon approach, and musing how far she's come from Alabama. She comes from the tiny town of Doane's Mill, but before she was twelve years old, she had lived in a three-room log cabin with her mother and father. The summer her parents died, Lena had gone to live with her older brother in Doane's...