William Faulkner's "Barn Burning"

William Faulkner's "Barn Burning"

Tone, Style and Voice • Faulkner’s control over style and tone is highly individual, because all authors put words uniquely together to fit specific circumstances of specific works. • Faulkner’s style adapts words to situations. • “Barn Burning” is a story of the Snopeses, a poor white family who appear in a number of Faulkner’s narratives of fictional Yoknapatawpha County • Setting: Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, about 30 years after the Civil War (1861-65), thus, in the 1890s

“Barn Burning” Family Conflict • The father, Abner, avenges himself on more socially established whites by burning their barns and carrying out lesser acts of mischief. • The younger son, named Colonel Sartoris (Sarty) Snopes, 10 years old, struggles to revolt against his father • Colonel Sartoris: a Confederate Army officer and leading citizen of Jefferson, Mississippi (higher class and [perhaps] higher morality)

Family Conflict (continued) • Sarty struggles between family allegiance and external standards of justice • Abner hits him and tells him “to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain’t going to have any blood to stick to you”. • Later, twenty years later, he was to tell himself, "If I had said they wanted only truth, justice, he would have hit me again”.

Family Conflict (continued) • Opening Scene: makeshift courtroom in general store • Sarty feels “the old fierce pull of blood” his father’s enemy is his enemy too • However, he also feels “grief and despair” because he must tell a lie for his father • But when another boy calls Abner a “Barn Burner,” Sarty attacks the boy

Symbols: Fire • As a barn burner, Abner is associated with fire • “The element of fire spoke to some deep mainspring of his father’s being” • Fire as force of civilization and destruction • Taking the family’s lantern oil to burn de Spain’s barn

Symbol: Rug • The destruction of the rug is symbolic of Abner’s larger rebellion against society. • He dirties the rug with his stiff foot injured during the war: his rebellion has long history. • He “never looked at it, he never once looked down at the rug”—willfully disregarding his destructiveness.

Symbol: Cheese • Cheese is a peculiar symbol, associated with the power of family allegiance over external justice in the 2 court scenes • See opening of story: “The store in which the Justice of the Peace’s court was sitting smelled of cheese” . • Abner buys cheese from “courtroom” store and shares it with his sons

The Ending • Sarty reveals his father’s plan/actions to the de Spain’s • Sarty assumes that his father is dead. Can we be sure? • Sarty concludes that his father “was brave,” but the narrator protests. • Sarty heads out into the dark woods…

Lit Circles • 1.) What are the sources of tension / conflict in this story? • 2.) How would you account for the actions of the father -- having burned the first barn, the rug incident, and going to burn the second barn? What is motivating the father to do these things? • 3.) How would you account for the actions of the boy, from his willingness to lie to his ultimate warning about the barn? • 4. A) Examine the boy’s “interior monologues,” the italicized parts of the story. What do these tell us about the boy, about others, about Faulkner’s style(s) of narration? • 4. B) What does the boy’s name tell us about him and his father?

Lit Circles (continued) • 5.) Examine the references to the boy's sisters in the story. How and why does Faulkner describe the sisters the way he does? • 6.) Examine the places in the story where the boy's mother and aunt appear. How and why does Faulkner describe these women the way he does? • 7.) What are we “to take” from this story? What is the central theme or message? Are there other themes or messages as well? • 8.) How would you describe Faulkner’s “style”? How does his compare to the styles of Porter, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway (all four were/are known for their unique styles)? Which style(s) do you prefer, and why? • 9) Identify and explain at least three symbols from the story.

William Faulkner's "Barn Burning"