"That Evening Sun" first appeared in the March 1931 issue of American Mercury. The remainder of its publishing history is identical to "A Rose for Emily": reprinted in These Thirteen (1931); in Faulkner's Collected Stories (1950); and in the Selected Short Stories of William Faulkner (1961). For anyone reading Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, "That Evening Sun" provides an excellent introduction to the novel: Every character in it retains the same characteristics they have in the longer work.
The title of "That Evening Sun" refers to a popular black spiritual that begins, "Lordy, how I hate to see that evening sun go down," which implies that once the sun sets, death is sure to follow. Thus, at the end of Faulkner's short story, although some characters are not convinced that Nancy's husband, Jesus, is waiting outside her cabin to kill her, we suspect that he is close by, and that he will likely slit Nancy's throat with his razor before the night is over. The setting sun is feared by the singer of the spiritual and Nancy alike.
Many critics refer to "That Evening Sun" as one of the finest examples of narrative point of view. The story is told by Quentin Compson, whose voice Faulkner utilizes at two distinct times in the boy's life. First, we have 24-year-old Quentin remembering a 15-year-old episode concerning Nancy's fear of Jesus. This introductory point of view is then followed by the narrative voice of 9-year-old Quentin, who recalls the episode as he experienced it at that time. Within this narration, we have the emotionally contrasting adult voices of Nancy and Mr. Compson, Quentin's father.
