The Strategies of Victims Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning,” captures the intensity and dynamics of a father and son relationship. The story is set in the Old South, where the dry farming grounds of the plantations are the only places that promise hardworking men a means to support their families. Though Faulkner presents these two man characters as vastly different, the father, Abner, and the son, Sarty, share a striking similarity. They both see themselves as victims and display the traits of a victim’s status. The father is a victim of social injustice and poverty. The son, on the other hand, is a victim of child abuse at the hand of his controlling and impulsive father. Faulkner sets the tone of the story by displaying the strategies of the victims and the complexity of their abuse through the narrator’s voice. In "Barn Burning," Faulkner portrays a boy, very nearly moral awareness, who ends up cut off from the modern world of which he is beginning to understand. The boy, Sarty begins to feel his alienation take root in connection with his father, who ought to be his moral compass and lead Sarty into this new modern society. On account of his father's criminal impulsiveness and a knack for starting fires, Sarty ends up, in the beginning of the story victimized and insulted by a kid, who he attacks back. His father has taught him to see others as the "enemy" (X.J. Kennedy). When Sarty’s father is charged with arson by Mr. Harris, he consequently labels him as "our enemy . . . hisn and ourn” (X.J. Kennedy pg. 147). The story closes with Sarty alone on at night on a hill viewing the stars. Faulkner depicts the Sarty’s loneliness, learned through his years of abuse and neglect. Yet on this hill, he has a moment of clarity and... ... middle of paper ... ...nd a source and cause for his family’s poverty, and unhappiness. Abner is in denial that his circumstances are mostly a direct result of his decisions. Instead, he hates society and the educated man. Therefore, Abner directs his anger towards them, fighting to regain his pride and idea of justice. Through the support of the narrator’s tone, these two diversely different characters are brought together because they go through the same strategies and expressions of pain, unhappiness, injustice and abuse. Faulkner’s brilliant writing style and tone through the voice of the narrator creates a dynamic story that discusses several critical points, such as the struggles of victims and their strategies. Through two characters the author was able to describe the different reactions of victims, as well as, allow the audience to form and label the antagonist and protagonist.
In “Barn Burning”, Abner enters the house at dusk and “could smell the coffee from the room where they would presently eat the cold food remaining from the afternoon meal.” (14) A warm meal would indicate fulfillment and cohesiveness within the family. The inclusion of the detail that the food was cold represents an inversion of these associations. The cold meal symbolizes the family’s distaste with Abner’s actions. The memory of the dinner lingers with the family as they get ready for bed and appears linked with negative images of “Where they had been were no long, water-cloudy scoriations resembling the sporadic course of a lilliputian moving machine.” (15) In addition, the emphasis that this dinner was in fact a left-over meal symbolizes that the pattern of Abner’s destructive behavior and its effects on his family will not change.
The description of the father’s character and plot shows his evilness. Abner is described as having an “inscrutable face and gray eyes” which, Faulkner writes, “glinted coldly” (342). Describing the father’s voice, as “cold and harsh” and the fact Abner often wears a stiff black coat paints a picture of evil in the reader’s mind (340). Making the connection with the color black to represent evil, Faulkner often uses black when describing the father. For example, when Sarty states that he “could see his father against the stars, but without a face or depth, sharp, black, flat, and bloodless as though cut from tin in the iron folds of the frock coat, the voice harsh like tin and without heat like tin” (341). Thorough out the story, the father burns down barns of people that he assumes are his enemies. The father resents rich people, and he does not financially support his family adequately, placing the family in the low income class.
Throughout the story “Barn Burning”, author William Faulkner conveys the moral growth and development of a young boy, as he must make a critical decision between either choosing his family and their teachings or his own morals and values. The reader should realize that the story “Barn Burning” was written in the 1930’s, a time of economic, social, and cultural turmoil. Faulkner carries these themes of despair into the story of the Snopes family.
In “Barn Burning,” the author, William Faulkner, composes a wonderful story about a poor boy who lives in anxiety, despair, and fear. He introduces us to Colonel Satoris Snopes, or Sarty, a boy who is mature beyond his years. Due to the harsh circumstances of life, Sarty must choose between justice and his family. At a tender age of ten, Sarty starts to believe his integrity will help him make the right choices. His loyalty to family doesn’t allow for him to understand why he warns the De Spain family at such a young age. Faulkner describes how the Snopes family is emotionally conflicted due to Abner’s insecurities, how consequences of a father’s actions can change their lives, and how those choices make Sarty begin his coming of age into adulthood.
Growing up in Mississippi in the late Nineteenth Century and the early part of the Twentieth Century, young William Faulkner witnessed first hand the struggles his beloved South endured through their slow progression of rebuilding. These experiences helped to develop Faulkner’s writing style. “Faulkner deals almost exclusively with the Southern scene (with) the Civil War … always behind his work” (Warren 1310. His works however are not so much historical in nature but more like folk lore. This way Faulkner is not constrained to keep details accurate, instead he manipulate the story to share his on views leading the reader to conclude morals or lessons from his experience. Faulkner writes often and “sympathetically of the older order of the antebellum society. It was a society that valued honor, (and) was capable of heroic action” (Brooks 145) both traits Faulkner admired. These sympathetic views are revealed in the story “A Rose for Emily” with Miss Emily becoming a monument for the Antebellum South.
Normally in life, you look up to your father to be the care taker and to encourage you to make your own decisions on what is right and what is wrong. You figure your father should have your best interest at heart and to show compassion for you. In William Faulkner's short story "Barn Burning," Abner is the opposite of the normal father figure you would see. Rather than encouraging his son, Sarty, to make his own decisions on what is right and what is wrong, Abner wants Sarty to lie for him to protect his freedom, so Abner won’t get caught for burning barns. Abner forces fear into Sarty to make sure he will lie for him rather than tell the truth. The relationship between Abner and Sarty is struggling due to Abners abusiveness and criminal ways.
If we compare William Faulkner's two short stories, 'A Rose for Emily' and 'Barn Burning', he structures the plots of these two stories differently. However, both of the stories note the effect of a father¡¦s teaching, and in both the protagonists Miss Emily and Sarty make their own decisions about their lives. The stories present major idea through symbolism that includes strong metaphorical meaning. Both stories affect my thinking of life.
In “Barn Burning” the setting is a time when people drove horse wagons and the workingmen were generally farmers. The major character in this story is Colonel Sartoris Snopes, called “Sarty” by his family who is a ten-year-old boy. In the beginning, Sarty is portrayed as a confused and frightened young boy. He is in despair over the burden of doing the right thing or sticking by his family, as his father states,” You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain’t going to have any blood to stick to you.”
William Faulkner elected to write “Barn Burning” from his young character Sarty’s perspective because his sense of morality and decency would present a more plausible conflict in this story. Abner Snopes inability to feel the level of remorse needed to generate a truly moral predicament in this story, sheds light on Sarty’s efforts to overcome the constant “pull of blood”(277) that forces him to remain loyal to his father. As a result, this reveals the hidden contempt and fear Sarty has developed over the years because of Abner’s behavior. Sarty’s struggle to maintain an understanding of morality while clinging to the fading idolization of a father he fears, sets the tone for a chain of events that results in his liberation from Abner’s destructive defiance-but at a costly price.
When one faces a traumatic experience, his or true nature often reveals itself. Trauma forces its sufferers to cope. How one copes is directly linked to his or her personality. Some will push any painful feelings away, while others will hold onto pleasant memories. Both of these coping mechanisms can be observed in Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” and William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily.” In “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” and “A Rose for Emily,” the two protagonists’ prominent characteristics distinctly affect the way they cope with trauma and influence the short stories’ outcomes.To begin, Granny Weatherall is a prideful control freak. In contrast, Miss Emily is delusional and stubborn.
In the short story Barn Burning, William Faulkner sets the scene in a courtroom located in a corner store market. Protagonist, Abner Snopes, was being accused of burning down Mr. Harris’s barn. Because of this, the Snopes family gpt forced to leave the country and never come back. They then moved to a beautiful new place where Abner worked as a sharecropper for Major De Spain. Not long after working for them, Abner ruined their valuable rug by intentionally tracking horse manure onto it. When told to clean it he used soap that completely destroyed it. Major de Spain fined Abner 20 bushels of corn, which caused Abner dto take Major De Spain to court. The Justice only deducts the punishment from 20 bushels to 10 bushels of corn. Due to Abner's rage he plots to burn Major de Spains house by instructing Sarty to gather kerosene. Meanwhile Sarty cautioned Major De Spain about his father’s motives. And lastly, three gun shots went off, but Sarty had no desire to look back to see who was killed.
At first glance, the story “Barn burning” seems just to be about a tyrannical father and a son who is in the grips of that tyranny. I think Faulkner explores at least one important philosophical question in this story were he asks at what point should a person make a choice between what his parent(s) and / or family believes and his own values?
William Faulkner has written some of the most unique novels and short stories of any author, and, to this day, his stories continue to be enjoyed by many. Both “Barn Burning” and “A Rose for Emily” tell about the life of southern people and their struggles with society, but Faulkner used the dramatic settings of these two stories to create a mood unlike any other and make the audience feel like they too were a part of these southern towns. These two stories have many similarities in there setting, but they also have many differences to that make them unique and interesting.
I believe that the Sarty's father and brother are shot at the end of the story. The last paragraph in context to my response to the last question feels like the boy is worn out from the worry of his responsibilty to stop his father. He is tired too because he did not succeed and is walking on into the woods like he thought he could before when running to fetch the oil from the barn.
William Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning” describes a typical relationship between wealthy people and poor people during the Civil War. The main character, Abner Snopes, shares the ropes to make a living for his family. He despises wealthy people. Out of resentment for wealthy people, he burns their barns to get revenge.