Will Mayes
Character Key Number:
1750
Display Name:
Will Mayes
Sort Name:
Mayes, Will
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?:
Yes
Biography:
A Negro who works as the night watchman at the local ice plant in "Dry September," Will Mayes is ambiguously accused by a white woman named Minnie Cooper of assault and lynched by a mob of Jefferson men. The lynching is not narrated. Although the barber says repeatedly that "I know Will Mayes" (169), and believes he is innocent, the narrative refers to him mostly as "the Negro" and does not describe him - his age or physical experience - extensively. Nor does story ever say what, if anything, happened between Will and Minnie. Will himself says repeatedly but to no avail that "I aint done nothing" (177, 178).