Barn Burning Research Paper

“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.

As it seems, this literary piece might be very complex to get a conclusion from. Personally, I think Faulkner wants his readers to debate about this. While I was reading “Barn Burning”, I noticed that the author does not give specific resolutions to the problems he

In “Barn Burning,” Abner is described as stiff, wolf-like, and without heat because of his coldness and bitterness toward society in which he was part of during the time of the War Between the States. The main character is Abner Snopes who sharecrops to make a living for his family; in his story, Faulkner describes a typical relationship between wealthy people and poor people during that particular time.

The style in which Faulkner writes this story allows the reader’s mind to wonder and put the story together their own

   In William Faulkner's story, "Barn Burning", we find a young man who struggles with the relationship he has with his father and his own conscience.  We see Sarty, the young man, develop into an adult while dealing with the many crude actions and ways of Abner, his father.  We see Sarty as a puzzled youth that faces the questions of faithfulness to his father or faithfulness to himself and the society he lives in.  His struggle dealing with the reactions that are caused by his father's action result in him thinking more for himself as the story progresses.

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.

At first glance, the story “Barn burning” seems just to be about a tyrannical father and a son who is in the grips of that tyranny. I think Faulkner explores at least one important philosophical question in this story were he asks at what point should a person make a choice between what his parent(s) and / or family believes and his own values?

To begin, many of the images the author creates clarify to the reader what is going on in the story and what might happen next. In the beginning of the story, Felipe discovers the newspaper advertisement and immediately heads over to the location the next day and gets the job to edit the documents. After his first night staying in the Llorente home, Felipe hears a commotion outside of his bedroom. He looks out of his window and notices something unusual in the trees. “[..] that square of yew trees and brambles where five, six, seven cats[...]are all twined together, all writhing in flames and giving off a dense smoke that reeks of burnt fur” (Fuentes 840). This gives the reader the indication that Felipe has seen cats burning in flames to death and

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

Family is the core of society. It is within this nurturing environment that hopes and dreams are constructed and allowed to grow. Children learn the basic moral values and the socially acceptable codes of conduct necessary for later life, but they can also absorb unacceptable behaviors by observing those around them. In Barn Burning, William Faulkner chronicles the life of Abner Snopes, and the less-than-perfect relationship he has with his relatives and son, Sartoris. Snopes is a very bitter and discontented man, one who is envious of his rich land-owning neighbors.

Loyalty is a powerful force. Oftentimes it blindsides us and causes us to support things we would not normally. Even do things that we despise. William Faulkner’s Barn Burning illustrates just such a case. Presenting a young boy’s progression from a loyal child, to an independent man as a conflict of loyalty and morals. This boy, Sarty, battles his own forming morals versus his father’s decisions, which leads to his development from child to adult. Faulkner writes his characters progression in five stages: blind loyalty, repressed disagreements, open questioning, and attempted reasoning with his father, before finally taking action to contradict his father.

Fire is the start and end of this story. Abner’s constant envy is the fuel to his personal fire within himself. He travels from job to job picking vendettas with people because they have what he desires, land and money. In these times a person’s barn is their livelihood and Abner, who is just a tenant farmer, wants what others have. So he takes from them, by means of destruction, what he could not claim for himself. He justifies it in his mind with trivial reasons, convincing himself these people had done him harm in some way, and deserved what was coming. Abner provides grand, harty flames for the people he hated while providing his family with “a small fire, neat, niggard almost, a shrewd fire; such fires were his father 's habit and custom always, even in freezing weather” (Faulkner 34). Fires are the only true thing Abner has control over. Abern expects his

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.

The characters are mad at one another for their actions and emotions. Faulkner shows the readers how difficult a character can feel. William Faulkner uses loyalty as one of the main themes in this story. He also uses the style in writing long sentences interrupted by clauses. The first theme addressed in William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” is Alienation and loneliness which Sarty is at the center of all.

In his short story “Barn Burning” William Faulkner shows how hard growing up can be and how there comes a time when you have to make some excruciatingly hard choices that can significantly impact your future. "Barn Burning" is a short story written by the American author William Faulkner, according to what I read in the article “Misplacing "Barn Burning", a Story of the '90s” on the SouthEast Missouri State University website, that I accessed on February 2nd, 2018, “Barn Burning” was published in 1939. Like most of Faulkner’s stories it has received a lot of praise. The main theme is the internal struggles Sarty endures while battling what is right and wrong and his loyalty to his family. I myself have struggled with doing the right thing and what loyalty can mean.