The Corruption with Modernization in Faulkner’s The Country
The disruption of traditional values and ways of life that accompanied the modernization of the U.S. seems to be a common theme throughout the “Country” section of Faulkner’s Collected Stories. In “Barn Burning” Abner Snopes seems to feel that the world is against him: “Don’t you know all they wanted was a chance to get at me…” (8). He sees fire as “the one weapon for the preservation of integrity” (8), and it is apparent that he feels the disparity in standard of living between farm owners such as Major de Spain, and workers like himself to be an injustice and an injury to him (but then again, maybe he’s just plain evil, as Faulkner’s characterization of him as stiff, cold, and always in dark clothing intimates). In “Shingles for the Lord,” the “modern ideas about work” imparted to Solon Quick from his experience with the WPA are presented as ridiculous—labor put toward repairing a church calculated out precisely into “work units” (29-30). Could Faulkner be presenting the idea that so-called “progress” and the introduction of capitalism and government intervention has corrupted people—become the new church at which they worship?
In “The Tall Men,” a sort of Gemeinschaft vs. Gesellschaft theme is evident. I really like this story. It conveys how difficult the changes in the U.S. during the early part of the 20th century must have been for the “country” people who were tied to the land. New Deal programs like the WPA and AAA, “three-letter reasons for a man not to work” (58), are a problem for the McCallum’s because the programs made hard work unprofitable and encouraged laziness and dependency as farmers lost autonomy and became beholden to the government. The old marshal, Mr. Gombault, tries to make Mr. Pearson, the government investigator, understand that the McCallum's are “tall” or prideful men whose self-sufficiency and friendly transactions have not given way to the impersonal deals and something-for-nothing mentality of the new era (it’s interesting that the characterizations of the McCallum's completely contradict Mr. Pearson’s characterization of “these people” as lazy, selfish, and ungrateful or unpatriotic, on page 46).
Again in “A Bear Hunt,” traditional, country people are set apart from “literate, town-bred people” (65); and in the last two stories, both featuring the Grier family (relation to Res Grier of “Shingles for the Lord”?
Grant Wood was a Regionalist artist who continually endeavored to capture the idyllic beauty of America’s farmlands. In 1930 he had been roaming through his hometown in Iowa searching for inspiration when he stumbled upon a house that left him spellbound. From this encounter came America’s iconic American Gothic. Not long after Wood’s masterpiece was complete the once ideal countryside and the people who tended to it were overcome by despair and suffering as the Great Depression came to be. It was a time of economic distress that affected nearly every nation. America’s stock market crashed in 1929 and by 1933 millions of Americans were found without work and consequently without adequate food, shelter, and other necessities. In 1935, things took a turn for the worst as severe winds and dust storms destroyed the southern Great Plains in the event that became known as the Dust Bowl. Farmers, who had been able to fall back on their crops during past depressions, were hit especially hard. With no work or way or other source of income, many farms were foreclosed, leaving countless families hungry and homeless. Ben Shahn, a Lithuanian-born man who had a deep passion for social injustice, captures the well-known hopelessness of the Great Depression through his photograph Rural Rehabilitation Client. Shahn and Wood use their art to depict the desperation of everyday farmers in America due to the terrors and adverse repercussions that the Great Depression incited.
The growth of the railroad was one of the most significant components in economic growth. However, the railroads hurt small shippers and farmers. Competition between railroad companies required some way to win business. Many railroads offered rebates and drawbacks to larger shippers who used their railroads. However, this practice hurt smaller shippers, including farmers, for often times railroad companies would charge more to ship products short distances. The freight rates were a burden on the farmers (Doc F). So the farmers grouped together forming National Grange of Patrons of Husbandry to protest these outrageous rates. Even though the farmers felt protesting the rates was a benefit for them it was actually a benefit fo...
Selena’s musical career started when she was a young kid. She had sang music her whole life, from the age of 8 when her father, Abraham, formed a band with his kids. The band name was Selena y Los Dinos, and Selena and her siblings played at various weddings, fairs, bars, restaurants, and other places. This was very time consuming for Selena’s childhood, but Selena
...apid social shifts combined with impending crisis over slavery to foment a quest for salvation and perfection.” The moral reform movements of the mid to late 1800s was a cultural storm, brewing up a war of dissension, and untold horrors. This movement was fueled by the three Isms, Communal-ism, Feminism, and Abolitionism. Thousands of Utopian communities dotted the landscapes, for the first time, women were standing up and declaring what their rights were, and man and women across the north and south were standing firm in an abolitionist’s view of slavery. A cultural storm was brewing; a dissent that would not be satisfied till it had blood. A Civil war was being birthed.
In the early 1900s, the American South had very distinctive social classes: African Americans, poor white farmers, townspeople, and wealthy aristocrats. This class system is reflected in William Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay Dying, where the Bundrens a poor, white family, are on a quest to bury their now deceased wife and mother, Addie in the town of Jefferson. Taking a Marxist criticism approach to As I Lay Dying, readers notice how Faulkner’s use of characterization reveals how country folk are looked down upon by the wealthy, upper class townspeople.
Faulkner, William. "Barn Burning." The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. 3th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. 1554-66.
Selena Quintanilla was a Mexican-American singer, actress, songwriter, spokesperson, and fashion designer. Selena was born on April 16, 1971 in Lake Jackson, Texas, U.S. Although she was born in the U.S. her mother is from Mexican descent. However, her father is American. Unfortunately, Selena died on March 31, 1995 in Corpus Christi, Texas. Yolanda Saldivar, the founder of Selena’s fan club was the one who murdered Selena. She got fired for stealing money from Selena’s boutique, but she still needed to make up all the money she embezzled. To do that she got lowered to a different position and started working off all the money she had stolen. Selena and Yolanda had become really good friends over time, but when Selena found out
By the time she was 6, her father saw talent in her as she sang with purity and perfect pitch as he played his guitar. Then with enthusiasm, Abraham got a hold of instruments and formed a family band with A.B. III as the bass, Suzette as the drummer, and Selena the lead singer. Their family band was named Selena Y Los Dinos and they started playing at weddings, fairs, and clubs close by. When they barely formed, A.B. III and Suzette hated the rehearsals practice they had every night because they took time from their friends; on the contrary, Selena loved the rehearsals because she had the same passion as her father for music.
O’Conner, Flannery. “Good Country People.” Literature An Introduction To Fiction, Poetry, And Drama. Eds. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia 3rd ed. New York Longman, 2003. 247-261
...y as “the root of all evil” would be too simplistic; what she suggests, rather, is that the distribution of wealth in mid-nineteenth-century America was uneven, and that those with money did little to effectively aid the workers whose exploitation made them rich in the first place. In her portrayals of Mitchell and the “Christian reformer” whose sermon Hugh hears (24), she even suggests that reformers, often wealthy themselves, have no useful perspective on the social ills they desire to reform. Money, she seems to suggest, provides for the rich a numbing comfort that distances them from the sufferings of laborers like Hugh: like Kirby, they see such laborers as necessary cogs in the economic machinery, rather than as fellow human beings whose human desires for the comfort, beauty, and kindness that money promises may drive them to destroy their own humanity.
William Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning” describes a typical relationship between wealthy people and poor people during the Civil War.
Understanding literary elements such as patterns, reader/writer relationships, and character choice are critical in appreciating William Faulkner's Barn Burning. Some literary elements are small and almost inconsequential while others are large and all-encompassing: the mother's broken clock, a small and seemingly insignificant object, is used so carefully, extracting the maximum effect; the subtle, but more frequent use of dialectal words which contain darker, secondary meanings; the way blood is used throughout the story in many different ways, including several direct references in the familial sense; how Faulkner chooses to write about poor, common people (in fact to the extreme) and how this relates to the opinions of Wordsworth and Aristotle; and finally, the relationship between the reader and writer, Faulkner's choice of narrator and point of view, and how this is works successfully.
William Faulkner is concerned with the south and its problems with black slavery. The issues in Barn Burning deal with the conflict between father and son. The theme of this story focuses on justice. The boy, Sarty, objects to his father burning barns and wants people to be treated fairly. His father, Abner, believes his son should respect and support kin. Abner thinks family is right no matter what. Faulkner’s intent is to show that choosing between one’s own family and justice is very difficult to do, and in the end justice must prevail. The theme is best illustrated by its point of view, its characterization, and setting.
Tobias Wolff’s “Hunters in the Snow” and William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” have related elements, but also divergent styles. The two stories expose that their characters were desperately looking and needed a change in their lives; either a change to help get over the limitation of the character’s freedom or a change in domination. The way Wolf and Faulkner wrote their stories caught many different types of audience by how similar and different their stories share, even though the stories were written in different time periods.
The Christmas holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ in the Christian faith has expanded beyond its religious significance and been transformed into a cultural phenomenon observed by both believers and non-believers.