Chapter Nine

1. Chapter Nine • William Faulkner (1897 – 1962)

2. Born in New Albany, Mississippi. • The work which won Faulkner a Nobel Prize in 1950 is often a depiction of life in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, an imaginative reconstruction of the area adjacent to Oxford.

3. His major novels include The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Sanctury (1931), Light in August (1932), Absalom, Absalom! (1936), and The Hamlet (1940). • His books of short stories include These Thirteen (1931), Go Down, Moses (1942), and The Collected Stories of William Faulkner (1950).

4. Text study: Barn Burning 1. The story of Barn Burning • The Snopes’ • Sarty’s father • Relationship between Sarty and his father. • Blood is thicker than water. • Sarty disliked his father in some way.

5. 2. Sarty’s inner conflicts in the last part of the story. • Sarty wants to stop his father from doing wrong things. • Sarty doesn’t expect the death of his father and brother.

6. Sarty’s despair, regret and confusion expressed through his calling “Pap! Pap!” and “Father. My father. • Sarty’s understanding of his father’s barn burning to the remark of “He was brave!” • Sarty’s psychological journey throughout the story.

7. 3. Language study • - description of motion. • - description of inner world. • - complex sentences

8. Questions to ponder • What seems to motivate Abner’s violent, antisocial behavior? • Why does he try to make his son Sarty an accomplice to the burning of Major de Spain’s barn? • Why does Sarty finally defy him and try to warn Major de Spain?

9. Assignment • Try to find out the parts that describe the child’s dissatisfaction with his father. • Try to find out the parts that narrate the love between the father and the son.