The Great Depression In William Faulkner's Barn Burning

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.

William Faulkner has said that when you are writing a novel, there is a lot of room to add some fluff and be a bit careless with your ideas, but when writing a short story there is no room for “trash”, as he calls it. However, this can be a tough thing to do when you have a lot to say. Even Faulkner could have difficulty following along with his beliefs. After having read and considered A Rose for Emily and Barn Burning, I do believe that William Faulkner has been true to his beliefs in both of these short stories.

William Faulkner was born in 1897. Growing up in Mississippi inspired Faulkner to incorporate his southern roots into many of his works. Many of his works intertwined when it came to the setting and even some of the characters of his stories. William Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning” is no different. In “Barn Burning” Faulkner brings in his native south through the setting, family dynamics, and social class.

“Barn Burning” is a story which was first published in 1939 and later awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award. It was the best short story of the year. William Faulkner, the author, was a creative and innovative writer whose ability to describe a place makes you feel like you are present and experiencing all happenings that take place in the story. Particularly in this short story, he has managed to create the picture of real-life events in the minds of readers while depicting the main theme: constant struggle between the poor and rich.

Even though young Sarty despises his father’s (Abner) crimes, why does he keep these crimes to himself and not expose his father? Throughout the text of “Barn Burning”, Sarty seems to have repetitive feelings of grief and despair, yet he hesitates to out his father for his crimes. Sarty is hesitant to out his father for his crimes because he hopes his father will change, he fears his father will harm him physically or emotionally, and he places a priority on his family’s wellbeing before his own.

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.

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.

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

William Cuthbert Faulkner (changed from the original spelling Falkner) was an American novelist. He usually wrote his novels, books, and poems in a mighty ways. This was one of the reason why only readers who pay strict attention to details can understand his writing’s main idea. Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, in 1897. He came from a wealth family. His family lost all its financial power like other southerners did during the Civil War. Most of Faulkner’s early works were poetry, but he became famous for his novels set in the American South. He is best known for his novels such as The Sound And The Fury and As I Lay Dying. The novel As I Lay Dying is one of his novels written in a challenging way. Faulkner did not go back to his novel As I Lay Dying and change a word after he finished writing it.

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.

Faulkner himself defended Abner's character in an interview with Jane Hiles called "Blood Ties in "Barn Burning."" The Great Depression was a time when the poor felt "alienated from the politically and economically dominant groups" and focused primarily on the "feeling of blood, of clan, blood for blood." The family had to come together regardless of any criminal activity or immoral choices for the survival of the group. The interview

“Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, and emerges ahead of his accomplishments” (Steinbeck). The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is a classic book read by millions in high school due to its simple prose, clear symbolism, and its heartwarming story of perseverance against the odds. However, this novel is far more than a heart-tugging story, but is actually a historically correct interpretation of the Great Depression of the 1930’s in the United States. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath’s plot and characters reflect the Great Depression environmentally,