preview

Barn Burning Movie And Book Comparison Essay

Decent Essays

After reading William Faulkner’s Barn Burning and watching Martin Ritt’s, The Long, Hot Summer, I noticed similarities but mainly differences between the film and the story. Although the film is not entirely based on the novel, the novel serves as the basic framework for the film. Both the film and the story shared the same theme, but differ in the actual story itself and how they portrayed the theme.
The theme of William Faulkner’s Barn Burning was the idea of "the old fierce pull of blood." In Barn Burning the two main characters are the dad, Abner, and the son, Sarty. Abner was a barn burner and Sarty was an accomplice because he always defended his dad due to the theme of “blood and family.” At the beginning of the story, Sarty smells something besides food in the store. …show more content…

In The Long, Hot Summer, Will Varner sees his children as a disappointment. His son, Jody Varner, does not have any ambition and is lazy. He knows his daughter, Clara Varner, is clever, but he also feels that she is wasting time by not getting married or having kids. Ben Quick comes into their lives. Despite Will believing stories of Ben being a barn burner, Will sees Ben as the son he never had as he is the same mold. Will does whatever he can to get Ben to be part of the family and to be able to carry on the Varner name which means marrying his daughter, Clara. Through this process, Clara realizes what she really wants in life, while Jody does whatever he can to retain his position in the family. Throughout this film there’s a theme of bloodline between everyone; with Clara it’s Will wanting her to have kids for the reason of family and blood line. With Jody it’s being accepted as a son and to share that bloodline with his father. Lastly, with Quick it’s that Will looks at him as more of a son figure than his actual son and also that Quick’s father was a barn burner, so it carries on through the

Get Access