Analysis Of Barn Burning By William Faulkner

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

William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” takes a lot of real life cultural values and ways of southern life in the late 1800s. Many of those values and ways are expressed by sharecropping and tenant farming.

The short story,”Barn Burning”written by William Faulkner is about a 10 year old boy named Sarty, who gets called to the stand of the court; his father, Abner Snopes, is accused of burning a barn down. Sarty knows that his father is guilty of arson and wants justice to be served, but, his father wants him to stay loyal to his family and blood. The conflict of morals vs. family goes on for the entire story,Sarty’s moral beliefs are embedded in justice and peace, while his father wants him to protect his family no matter the circumstances. Literary devices used in the story are symbolism and diction, the symbols of blood and fire being, family and a chain.and being told from the perspective of a timid ten year old boy. One of the major themes present throughout the story is courage, wanting to tell on his father for arson but, being shot down by his intimidating father. William Faulkner illustrates the theme of courage through the use of symbolism and diction

William Faulkner some would say was one of the great writers of American literature during the twentieth century. His stories many times had a gothic plot and contained odd or supernatural ideas and characters. He had many notable works, two of which were “A Rose for Emily” and “Barn Burning”. “A Rose for Emily” and “Barn Burning” are similar in the way that William Faulkner portrays the characters and the tone he uses in both.

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

developing a mind and will of his own. He is no longer unperceptively loyal to his father.

“Barn Burning” first appeared in print in Harper’s Magazine in 1939 (Pinion). It is a short story by William Faulkner which depicts a young boy in crisis as he comes to realize the truth about his father’s pyromania. Faulkner takes the reader inside the boy’s life as he struggles to remain loyal to his unstable father. In the end the boy’s courage and sense of justice wins and he not only walks away from his father’s iron clad control over his life, but he is able to warn his father’s next victim. To understand how this boy could make such a courageous, difficult decision we must review the important events in the story and the effect they have on him.

William Faulkner's "Barn Burning" provides an excellent example of how conflicting loyalties can affect decisions. In Faulkner's story, the main character, Sarty, faces such a dilemma. On one hand, Sarty has the morals that society has instilled in him in spite of his father. One the other hand, Sarty has the loyalty to his father because of the blood ties shared between them and the fact that his father raised and provided for him. Ultimately, it is these conflicting ideas that will lead to Sarty's final decision.

The works "Barn Burning" by William Faulkner and "The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck at first glance may seem to have no connection, but in spite of different plot they focus on similar ideas.

actions to show that no one will own or control him. He has no regard

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 is a writer from Mississippi. Faulkner is a very famous writer with most of his most famous works being short stories. Two of his most popular short stories are “A rose for Emily” along with “Barn Burning”. Faulkner has many other popular works, but “Barn Burning” was one of his well-known stories because of the many different of elements of literature in which Faulkner chose to include. Faulkner was known as a writer who could properly convey many different elements of literature, such as symbolism, conflict, tone, and many other elements of plot within his stories. In “Barn Burning”, William Faulkner most commonly uses symbolism and conflict to emphasize the obstacles that Sarty has to face in his youth years.

Born in 1897, William Faulkner was born into a traditional southern family in Mississippi. Throughout his career, Faulkner chronicled the effects of the Great Depression in the postbellum South with his short stories and novels. Following an era of excess and luxury, the Great Depression revolutionized the life of Americans living in the southern states. The economic turmoil brought on by the recession increased existing racial tensions and heightened the disparity between the upper and middle classes. Although it takes place approximately forty-five years prior, allusions to the Great Depression can be seen throughout William Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning” in the racial and social clashes between Abner and the surrounding community, along with the lifestyle of the Snopes family.

William Faulkner’s use of a setting in a short story, such as “Barn Burning”, effected the entire outcome of the story from start to finish. In “Barn Burning”, a young boy must face his father and face the reality of a harsh world. He must also discover for himself that his father is wrong and learn to grow up the right way in a racial environment. Faulkner’s setting is one of the most important literary elements that help the audience understand the story.

There are several ways in which William Faulkner's short story "Barn Burning" is indicative of literary modernism. It depicts a relevant historical period and is part of the frontiersman literary tradition (Gleeson-White, 2009, p. 389). The author utilizes a number of purely literary approaches that were innovative for the time period in which the tale was originally published (in 1932), such as employing a young child as a narrator complete with misspelled words and broken, puerile thoughts. However, the most eminent way in which this story embraces the tradition of literary modernism is in the author's rendition of dynamic social conventions that were in a state of flux at the time of the writing. Specifically, his treatment of race is the inverse of how race is generally portrayed in American literature prior to the early part of the 20th century. An analysis of this integral component of "Barn Burning" reveals that Faulkner's unconventional rendering of African American characters in a desirable social status particularly as compared to that of the Snopes clan is crucial to this tale's inclusion as part of the tradition of literary modernism.