Sarty and Emily have similar childhoods that made them the way they are now. They were raised by fathers that had a major impact on their lives. Fathers are supposed to be supportive, guide you in the right way, protect you, and also let you make your own decisions, so that you can learn right from wrong. In this instance, Sarty and Emily fathers made a bad impact on how they were brought up.
Sarty's and his father, Abner, are from a poor background. His father is not the average role model for his son. He is dishonest, a bully, controlling, and so on. You would think that his father would have his best interest at heart but it is the complete opposite. He wants to use Sarty as a shield, where he has his son to fabricate the truth about him burning down the barns. It shows that Abner only cares about not getting caught than how his son feels about lying for him.
"You're getting to be a man. You
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Her father, Mr. Grierson, was to over protective and conceited. He was preventing her from being social with any men in town. The only person she had was her father before he had died. "The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as in our custom (Faulkner)." In this quote, they only felt some sort of emotion for her because there was a death in the family. It is courtesy to have a gathering if someone has died. The towns people did not care for her at all, they said she was too high and mighty for her own good. Now as a grown woman in her forties, she did not have anybody to help cope with the loneliness. This is the reason why she has shut herself off from the community. After her father had died, she finally got a chance at happiness so she takes it. She met Homer Barron, who she thought was the love of her life. Her father impacted her life significantly, which is why she jump at the first man she
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
Sarty never justifies his father’s actions and is aware that if he allows things to remain the same, he will become a product of his environment. This is his motive for warning Abner’s next barn burning victim and his chance to move on with his life.
Emily and Sartoris are also similar in their personalities. The following quote is from “A Rose for Emily”. It states, “When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it…” (3). This quote tells us that Emily was reluctant to change. It is almost as if she wanted time to stand still. The following also shows Sartoris reluctance to change. He states the following after his father is asked to pay for damages he caused, “Pap you done the best you could! If he wanted hit done different why didn’t he wait and tell you how? He won’t get no twenty bushels! He won’t get none!” (2). This quote shows how Sartoris doesn’t want to turn his father in. He wants things to stay the same in that he doesn’t want his father to go to jail, he is reluctant to change. Sartoris and Emily have similar personalities and the people in their lives were also similar, both having fathers that were anything but perfect.
Miss Emily's relationship with her father is a key factor in the development of her isolation. As she is growing up, he will not let anybody around his daughter,
father put him in were not right. When Abner goes to burn the barn in the new country,
So Abner got his wagon along with his family and they loaded the things they could fit in it then left the county. On the way out of the county, people were yelling “Barn Burner,” “Barn Burner”, even Sartoris got a hit to his arm because of his father’s, Abner Snopes, wrong doings to people and their belongings. After Sartoris got hit, he was trying to show his dad and family how tough he was and how he still respected his dad and loyal to him by not washing the blood off his body but keeping it on till later, “Naw, he said. Hit don’t hurt. Lemme be”(802). Faulkner shows Sartoris loyalty by him not having getting upset about getting hit because of his father's actions but wanted his dad to be proud about he took it for
Sarty felt pressured to lie. He was living in fear of his abusive father. He always tried to find a good reason for what his father did. He always looked for an excuse as to why Abner burned things. He tried to convince himself that lying to keep Abner out of trouble was the right thing to do.
It is noted in the passage that “Homer himself had remarked--he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks' Club--that he was not a marrying man” (4). First her father runs away men, then when a man finally comes around he is homosexual. One day Miss Emily goes to the druggist and says “I want arsenic” (3). It is after seeing this that the people in town started to think she was going to commit suicide (4). Homer barron leaves and returns after Miss Emily’s two cousins leave. The people in the town never see him again and they say “the one we believed would marry her … had deserted her. The body of Homer Barron was found on the bed with a piece of Miss Emily’s gray hair next to the body.
An important idiosyncrasy of Emily's that will help the reader to understand the bizarre finale of the story, is her apparent inability to cope with the death of someone she cared for. When deputies were sent to recover back taxes from Emily, she directed them to Colonel Sartoris, an ex-mayor that had told her she would never have to pay taxes, and a man that had been dead for ten years. Years before this incident, however, after her father had died, she continued to act has if he had not, and only allowed his body to be removed when threatened with legal action. Considering the fate of her lover's corpse, one suspects she would have kept her father's corpse also, had the town not known of his death.
Emily’s father considered themselves superior than others in town. . He believed none of the young boys were suitable for Emily, and always chased them away. Her
First, Abner’s unchanging character shows his cold heartedness. After being sentenced to leave the country for burning a man’s barn, he shows no emotions to his family. During the story, there was not a time when he apologized or offered a word of encouragement to them. His tone of voice when talking to
Emily was kept confined from all that surrounded her. Her father had given the town folks a large amount of money which caused Emily and her father to feel superior to others. “Grierson’s held themselves a little too high for what they really were” (Faulkner). Emily’s attitude had developed as a stuck-up and stubborn girl and her father was to blame for this attitude. Emily was a normal
In her mind she had the one thing she needed most, companionship. Even if it was a dead corpse, it was stilling something. In the end of the story when the book states, “We saw a long strand of iron gray hair,” it was obvious that she sought refuge from the world in that bed with Homer. However twisted that may sound it showed how desperate she really was. That is the pint in the story where things really change. If you look back on her life and how everyone in town abandoned her, you really have strong feelings for her. You feel sorry that she was left to fend for herself without any idea of what to do. She did what she felt she had to do, and in her mind it was all right.
Without her father, she had no one to put any order in her life and wasn't going to let anyone else try. "We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and knew with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which robbed her, as people will" (Faulkner page #).
Emily’s upbringing is plagued with difficulties. She is the first-born of a young mother and the eldest of five brothers and sisters. As a baby, she is