Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Thu, 2013-12-26 14:50
During World War I, Warren and Jock trained "in Canada" (194) and then deployed to Europe as aviators in the Royal Flying Corps (187). (Faulkner himself enlisted in the Canadian Royal Air Force in June, 1918, and trained as a cadet pilot in and around Toronto, but the war ended before he finished.)
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Thu, 2013-12-26 14:45
The narrator never names his town; in fact, Faulkner deliberately casts it as anonymous, with counterparts all over the country (calling them "little towns like this one" [194]); we infer that it is Jefferson because of its similarities to the county seat of Yoknapatawpha. At the center of town, the Square contains the various offices, businesses, and public buildings visited by the three aviators in "Death Drag." It also witnesses the airplane's dubious entry into town.
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Thu, 2013-12-26 14:38
Jefferson's barber shop is a prime location in Faulkner's works for the exchange of gossip and formation of public opinion among men; in this story it is where Captain Warren "tells about" the barnstormers to the men "in the barber shop" (193).
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Thu, 2013-12-26 14:28
Because his height made him ineligible to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps, during World War I Faulkner enlisted in the Canadian Royal Air Force to train as an aviator. His training had not ended when the War did, so he never got to serve in combat. But both Warren and Jock in "Death Drag" get into the war after their pilot's training "in Canada" (194), and so does [Bayard] Sartoris in "All the Dead Pilots." These texts don't say where in Canada they trained, but the military flight school Faulkner attended was in Toronto.
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Thu, 2013-12-26 14:24
The "airport" in "Death Drag" was built right next to a farm (185). The barn presents an obstacle for pilots trying to take off or land, but in the end, with its "roof of rotting shingles" over the hay that's stored in it, it is this barn that turns out to be a lifesaver for Ginsfarb (186). (See also Yoknapatawpha Airfield in this index.)
Submitted by tmtowner@utdall... on Thu, 2013-12-26 14:08
On his 1946 map, Faulkner places this location slightly south and east of Jefferson alongside the road that runs to Mottstown, and labels it the "Airport," which is also the word the story's narrator uses the first time he mentions the location (185). But the rest of the time the narrative refers to it as the "field" (186), and that is a much more accurate word. As the narrator acknowledges, Jefferson's airfield is "still in an embryonic state": a regraded cotton field "with an X-shaped runway into the prevailing winds" (186).
