The Diminishing Southern Code in William Faulkner's The Unvanquished

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.

In "Barn Burning," Faulkner's usual style of long sentences and detailed descriptions continues. Although the run on sentences are not quite as complicated or abundant as those of the other Faulkner works we have read, I still found myself wondering to some extent what the story was really about. Was it just about a bitter man's spitefulness toward Colonel de Spain as a result of his jealousy of the colonel's status? Or was there more to it? I also was left wondering why Faulkner did not refer to Sarty by name most of the time, but rather as "the boy." Did he want the reader to be less identified with Sarty even though he was the narrator? Did he want his reader to

“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.

The narrator of Faulkner’s The Unvanquished is apparently an adult recounting his childhood. The first person narrator is a child at the story’s outset, but the narrative voice is lucid, adult. Telling the story of his childhood allows the narrator to distinguish for the reader what he believed as a child from what he “know[s] better now” (10). The difference affords an examination of dominant southern masculinity as it is internalized by Bayard and Ringo, and demonstrates the effects on the boys of the impossible ideal.

She wanted to go see it, but she knew that the family would never turn back to go see it. The grandmother told the children “‘ [t]here was a secret panel in this house’ [knowing she wasn’t] telling the truth, but wishing she was” (O’Connor 360). She used her ways of manipulation by lying and making the plantation seem so much more interesting. Lying about things is always the wrong way to go about things no matter what it is.

The youthful protagonists of The Unvanquished and "Barn Burning," Bayard Sartoris and Sarty Snopes respectively, offer through their experiences and, most importantly, the way their stories are told, telling insights about the constructions of southern masculinities with respect to class. The relative innocence that each of the boys has in common, though ultimately loses, provides a record of sorts to the formation of the impressions that shape their young lives and their early conceptions of what it means to be a man. Through narrative artifice, Faulkner is able to make observations, apt but at times scathing, about these constructions of southern masculinity as

Innocences are often lost during childhood. People face maturity which cannot be learned at once, rather it s achieved through out ones life. In “The Wars” byTimothy Findley, and William Faulkner’s “Two Soldiers” the authors deliberately wants to represent the idea that maturing is continuous. In the short story “Two Soldiers” the young boy’s name is not given, and is grown in a common family. Faulkner wants anybody to relate this boy therefore the boy’s name is not shown. The two brave gentle man represents the theme by overcoming and facing maturity after their lost of innocence and maturity is faced forever in life.

William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” is a well versed rendition of the post-Civil War era, about the lives of a family of poor tenant farmers. This story’s setting is in a fictional (yet almost familiar) county in Mississippi, and is told through the eyes of a young boy. In a detached sort of tone, Faulkner takes us step by step through the ups and downs of Abner’s moods, and how his youngest son, Sarty, perceives them. Here is the thesis statement: However, it is Faulkner’s style, tone, and use of long, flowing sentences, that most stand out to the reader. .

The grandmother displayed behaviors of being self-centered. In the beginning of the story, the grandmother deliberately stated, “she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind” about the family vacation to Florida (O’Connor, 420). It was rude of her as a guest on the trip to try and make it all about herself. If she wanted to see her friends in Tennessee, she should have made her over personal trip to go there. Furthermore, she purposely lied about there being a secret panel to her grandchildren to stir them up, resulting in them going to the plantation. She even expressed, “the more she talked about it, the more she wanted to see it once again…,” and she even said, “she knew that Bailey would not be willing to spend any time looking at an old house…” (O’Connor, 424). First, it illustrates that the grandmother knew her son would not want to waste time on sight seeing an old home. Secondly, that motivated her to make a story up knowing that it would lead to her grandchildren, making the nervous father relinquish to the children request, which was truly the grandmother’s longing.

In Faulkner’s story, a sharp contrast is demonstrated between the culture and ideas of both the southern United States and the northern United States. Seeing as the story is written from the point of view of the town located in the south, there is an obvious bias against people from the northern United States. This negative outlook towards northerners is easily seen as Faulkner discusses the arrival of Homer Barron. Faulkner discusses how the ladies from the town say “a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner” which sets in place the rivalry of the north and the south by making someone from the north appear lesser. This idea is progressed further when the townspeople said “Poor Emily. Her kinsfolk should come to her” which displays

Historically the southern lady operated at the very core of social and cultural decorum of the American South however, Mrs Compson fails to portray the traditional ideals and conventions of a southern mother figure. In the south a mother figure was idealised as someone who was nurturing, caring and socially involved with the community, somebody who was not only in care of her family but, the black family who worked in her home. Mrs Compson portrays a complete contrast to these ideals as she occupies no social position within her family or community and is neither caring or nurturing towards her children. Faulkner presents Mrs Compson as unsocial which is evident as she confines her self to the house, but also restrict other family members

38).  He has a grand design to be the son who seized the power of his

“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

William Faulkner’s unconventional writing style is widely renowned for his disregard of literary rules and his keen ability to peer into the psychological depths of his characters. His novel As I Lay Dying is no exception to his signature style. This book sets forth the death of Addie Bundren, her family’s journey through Yoknapatawpha County to bury her with her relatives in Jefferson, Mississippi, and examines each character in depth from a variety of perspectives. While this journey wreaks havoc among members of the family, As I Lay Dying serves as a dark reminder that life is to be lived and that happiness is within reach.

People say time heals all wounds and fixes every issue. But, as time goes by, disputes and oppressiveness within society seem to worsen. However, we must always remember that every external issue starts from within. In his book, Light In August, William Faulkner describes society from different points of view. Something peculiar in Faulkner’s book is that all its characters are outcasts in their own way. This represents the fact that every human being has felt like a wallflower at least once. Light in August is plotted in Jefferson, Mississippi during the 1920’s. The time period sets the stage for a harsh and emotionally detached atmosphere, where people reject everything that defies the normal. Time has clearly not healed or abolished the oppressiveness the novel describes, thus concepts like racism still remain, not only in the South,