Comparison of “A&P” by John Updike and “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner

The short story writer William Faulkner emanates moral values in a young character in “Barn Burning,” Sartoris “Sarty” Snopes. As a ten year old boy, forced to choose between his kin blood lines, yet staying loyal to his beliefs, he takes a daring stand with bravery and wears the badge of courage doing it. Sarty’s adherences are pulled as they move between such large concepts as blood, truth and justice.

He is even more afraid of losing his father’s trust after Abner hits him “hard but with out heat”(280) not for telling the truth, but for wanting to. Sarty is conscious of the fact that if Abner knew his desire for “truth, justice, he would have hit”(280) him again and that Abner’s recommendation that he “learn to stick to” his “own blood or you ain’t going to have any blood to stick to you”(280) is more of a threat rather than fatherly advice. Sarty learns to stifle any qualms he has and overlook his own developing morals in order to defend his father’s cold-blooded attacks. In the face of Abner’s “outrage and savagery and lust”(286) and the ever-present conflict these emotional outbursts cause, Sarty’s sense of obligation to his father out weighs his desire to “run on and on and never look back”(286). He hopes being forced out of town will transform the side of Abner that possesses an “inherent [ly] voracious prodigality with material not his own”(279) and he will be satisfied once and for all. As father and son walk within sight of an impressive manor “big as a courthouse”(280) owned by Major de Spain, a wealthy landowner with whom Abner has struck a deal to farm corn on his land, Sarty knows at once that “they are safe from him”(280). His father’s “ravening”(281) envy could not possibly touch these “people whose lives are part of this peace and dignity”(281). But, Abner is seething with “jealous rage”(281) at the sight of the de Spain

In “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, we are given a piece of art that simply will leave you clueless unless, you understand the pain and frustration the man is going through; when choosing what route he feels will give him the most joy. In the poem a man is walking through the woods and he comes upon a fork. He who wants to take both roads chooses the route that he feels is traveled less on. Little does he know that both road have been equally traveled on. He who travels on the route that has fresher leaves lies to himself, by convincing himself that he will come back and take the other route. Though it was a very stressful and a hard decision for the man to make, many people are put into very similar situations like in John Updike’s A and P and as well as in James Joyce’s Eveline. Both Sammy and Eveline find it troubling to make a decision that will change their life completely.

In the books, The Adventures Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird, the authors demonstrate several themes: the coexistence of good and evil, the importance of moral education, the existence of social inequality, racism and slavery, intellectual and moral education, and the hypocrisy of “civilized” society. The common themes throughout the two books depict; that although the settings are nearly a century apart, society has not changed as drastically as believed.

To begin, I will talk about the similarities between “A&P” and “Barn Burning.” “A&P” takes place at a normal grocery store in which many people dress properly. One day, three teenage girls walk into this store wearing nothing but bathing suits. The story concentrates around the thoughts Sammy, the cashier, has while watching these girls. When the girls come to check out in Sammy’s lane, the manager notices their attire and makes his way over to where the three girls are. Lengel, the manager, criticizes the girls for what they are wearing. As the girls begin to leave the store, Sammy suddenly turns to Lengel and quits his job. Sammy secretly hopes the girls are watching him and will consider him their hero; however, the girls are gone and did not notice his attempt at a heroic act. The manager tries to talk Sammy out of quitting, but Sammy feels that he must go through with his impromptu decision. At the end of the story, Sammy exists the store alone and with an ambiguous felling that life would still be hard to him afterward.

A&P is described to be, “...five miles from a beach...but we’re right in the middle of town...north of Boston…” (Updike 19). Sammy’s description of the A&P present the setting as an ugly and boring place to be in. The fluorescent light is as cool as the “checkerboard green-and-cream rubber-tile floor”(Updike 19). The everyday grocery shoppers move in the same direction except for the girls in the swim suits, for they move against everyone else, and everything is organized into perfection along the tidy aisles. This degrading routine in this establishment is implied by Sammy’s careless reference to the usual shoppers as “sheep,” “houseslaves,” and “pigs” (Updike 18). These frequent customers seem to walk the store in oblivion to everything else around them; as Sammy points out, “I bet you could set off dynamite in an A&P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists…” (Updike 18).

“A Rose for Emily,” “A Worn Path,” and “The Lottery” by William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Shirley Jackson all have similar writing styles in their literature. In these three short stories the authors all use contrasting nature within their literature to predict the outcome and to learn for the upcoming events in the readings. The authors take subliminal phrases and subliminal symbolic text to have the reader become more attached and understand more of what the characters, setting and theme of the story has to offer. Using these three stories the reader of this essay will understand and grasp the symbolic meanings in text of each these short stories.

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.

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

The story Barn Burning centralized around a boy name Sarty and his tenant farmer family, forcing Sarty to make a choice between his morality or the bond between him and his father. The short story Barn Burning

In the first few scenes, Sarty is called upon by the justice to speak about the barn burning. Sarty’s loyalty to his family weather right, or wrong stirs him to be quiet. Susan. S Yunis in the narrator of Faulkner’s Barn Burning in the Faulkner Journal uses the same example to symbolize the agony that Sarty is going through trying to please the justice who demands honesty and his father who demands loyalty (Yunis 15-22).

William Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning” is an epic exhibition of the author’s style. In the story, Faulkner shows us the story of Colonel Sartoris Snopes regarding his want for good and his loyalty to his family. Throughout the story, Sarty is put in a position of having to struggle between his integrity and his want to defend his father and family. In “Barn Burning,” a struggle is displayed by Sarty Snopes between his want to do right and his want to honor his father.

“Barn Burning” and The Unvanquished present very different ways to tell a story. In “Barn Burning,” Faulkner uses a third person, limited omniscient point of view that allows him to enter the mind of the story’s protagonist, Colonel Sartoris Snopes. In this point of view, the narrator establishes that the story took place in the past by commenting that “Later, twenty years later, he was too tell himself, ‘If I had said they wanted only truth, justice, he would have it me again.’ But now he said nothing” (8). The narrator of “Barn Burning” develops Colonel Sartoris as a child by describing his relationship with his father; no matter how many times Ab Snopes burns a barn or

Random insignificant detail or symbolic motif? Often times in William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, the two are difficult to distinguish. However, when one takes a closer look outside Caddy’s and/or Quinton’s window, the fruit tree that “grew near to the house” reveals itself to be more significant than just another aspect of the setting. The tree symbolizes the growth of the Compson family, but is also, at least in part, ironically responsible for the destruction of the Compson name. It has religious and historical significance, and without it, the story could not have began or ended as it did.