Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses a violent act of sexual assault and includes graphic depictions of domestic violence and lynching, as well as alcohol addiction. The depictions of female characters in the novel are often based on misogynistic ideas. The source text uses the n-word, antisemitic language, and misogynistic language. Such language is reproduced in this guide only through quotations.

The novel begins in May 1929 as two men are standing by a stream in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. One man, Popeye, has been watching the other. A bird sings somewhere nearby and cars can be heard passing on the road. Popeye approaches the other man, who has been drinking at the stream, and asks him what he’s got in his pocket, implying that the man has a gun. The other man responds that it is just a book and that some people read them. Popeye squats down, and the two men squat in a standoff on either side of the stream for two hours.

The bird continues to sing, and the second man asks if Popeye can recognize the bird. He introduces himself as Horace Benbow, a lawyer from Kinston who is on his way to his hometown of Jefferson.