Barn Burning

1. Barn Burning By William Faulkner Source: www.enotes.com

2. Themes

3. Alienation and Loneliness • In ‘‘Barn Burning,’’ Faulkner depicts a child, on the verge of moral awareness, who finds himself cut off from the larger social world of which he is growing conscious • This sense of alienation takes root, moreover, in Sarty's relation with his father, who should be the moral model and means of entry of the child into the larger world.

4. Because of his father's criminal recklessness, Sarty finds himself, in the first part of the story, the object of an insult, and he attacks a boy who, in more ordinary circumstances, might be a school-companion or a friend. • His father has taught him to regard others as the “enemy.” • Mr. Harris, the bringer of the arson charge, is thus ‘‘our enemy ... hisn and ourn.’’

5. In fact, Mr. Harris is simply a man who has been mistreated by an egomaniacal provocateur. • The story concludes with Sarty alone on a hilltop at night, watching the stars. • This, too, reflects the boy's loneliness, and lack of social ties, but it also suggests his liberation from his family on the basis of a moral insight which just possibly signifies a bridge to link him with the greater social world.

6. Anger and Hatred • AbnerSnopes is anger embodied, ready to take offense over any interaction with other people, but especially with those whom he sees as his social superiors (which means most of them, since he lives at the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder). • Ab is locked into a hell of personal revenge, and his viciousness appears to have played a large part in the misery of his family.

7. Readers witness the anger of others, too, but often this is anger with a cause, as in the case of the exasperated Mr. Harris, or even the haughty Major de Spain. • Sarty also experiences anger—at his father—precisely on account of the father's maniacal anger at the world.

8. Loyalty and Betrayal • Abner's crude psychological stratagem for gaining the complicity of his family in his bizarre way of life is to press his claim of family ties, of loyalty. • This surfaces in Sarty's interior monologue, in the first court scene, concerning enemies, ‘‘mine and hisn both.’’ • But this represents only a degraded view of loyalty, since there is no moral requirement to be loyal to particular persons without qualification, not even to parents.

9. Abner's criminality absolves Sarty morally from maintaining loyalty, a view to which Sarty himself eventually comes. • In a technical sense, Sarty betrays his father to Major de Spain, but in a larger moral sense, Sarty expresses his real loyalty to normative ethics, in which revenge is an aberration and aggressive violence a sin.

10. Morals and Morality • Morality has to do with reciprocity among individuals and is encapsulated in ‘‘The Golden Rule,’’ that you should do unto others what you would have others do unto you. • AbSnopes persistently and willfully flouts morality so conceived. • He beats his son, tyrannizes his wife, picks fights with people who have done him no harm, and is an arsonist.

11. He was equally rabid and self-serving as a soldier, for he enlisted solely to make the best of the opportunity for looting. • Morality is expressed ethically in the form of law, which requires an objective sorting-out of truth. • ''Barn Burning'' traces Sarty's passage from immersion in the egocentric Hell of his father's life to his espousal of morality and law. • This is also a passage from the natural state of animal solidarity to the cultural state of concession to institutions.

12. Order and Disorder • AbnerSnopes's life, symbolized by his constant removal to new quarters on account of his quarrels with everyone and by the random wretchedness of the family's meager belongings, is a life of violent disorder. • Ab cannot integrate himself into any aspect of the social matrix, and even as a soldier he was out for himself.

13. Ab's tendency toward barn-burning sums up his warlike attitude toward social structure. • Sarty trades this disorder for order, symbolized most powerfully during the first courtroom scene, when Mr. Harris points to him with the enunciation that this boy knows the truth.

14. The objective truth, the account of what really happened between Abner and Mr. Harris, is the first revelation to Sarty of an order obtained by the individual's subordinating himself to abstract concepts of existence and proper behavior. • In this sense, Sarty's denunciation of his father to Major de Spain is a cry for order, for the liberation of his family from the infernal disorder of Ab's criminal tyranny.

15. Summary of Themes • Alienation and Loneliness • Anger and Hatred • Loyalty and Betrayal • Morals and Morality • Order and Disorder

16. The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg By Mark Twain

17. Themes

18. Hypocrisy • Several narrative elements render the honest reputation of Hadleyburg suspect from the beginning. • The narrator describes a town that ‘‘care[s] not a rap for strangers or their opinions,’’ while a couple of its residents so severely offend a stranger that he feels compelled to take revenge against the whole town. • After the stranger delivers the sack of gold to the Richardses, Mary becomes anxious about theft, exclaiming,"Mercy on us, and the door not locked!’’ • She regains composure only after she ‘‘listens awhile for burglars.’’

19. The suspicion, fear, and malice evinced by these events belie the town's "unsmirched'' honesty and suggest that an imperfect reality lurks beneath the surface. • The real nature of Hadleyburg becomes apparent as the story progresses. • In the privacy of their homes the townsfolk slander each other, revealing the mutual hatred that exists in the community. • For instance, Goodson ranks as the ‘‘best- hated,’’ followed by Burgess.

20. Edward's silence not only causes an undeserved scandal for Burgess, but his deception also leads the townsfolk to blame Goodson for Burgess's rapid departure from the town. • In addition, Edward hides his involvement in the scandal from Mary, because he fears that she would expose him. • He even admits that he only warned Burgess after he was sure that his actions were undetectable.

21. Edward says, ‘‘[A]fter a few days I saw that no one was going to suspect me [of warning Burgess], and after that I got to feeling glad I did it.’’ • Edward's revelations to Mary suggest that even before the tempting sack of gold appeared, a complex web of self-interest and deceit ensnared Hadleyburg that contradicts its boastful claims of thorough integrity. • Hypocrisy, not honesty, defines the town's character, since the residents preach honesty but practice self-interest and deceit.

22. Morality, Ethics and the Innateness of Human Sinfulness • The story of Hadleyburg teaches a moral lesson to both characters and readers alike. • The town's secrets raise a series of moral questions.

23. For instance, would the Richardses have been right to keep the gold since it would not have "hurt" anybody? • Was it ethical for Edward to conceal the evidence that could have cleared Burgess? • Mary justifies her husband's actions by reasoning that they could ill-afford to bring public disapproval upon themselves. • Furthermore, she claims that as long as Burgess did not "know that [Edward] could have saved him .. . that makes [withholding the information] a great deal better.''

24. Edward soothes his guilty conscience by warning Burgess of impending trouble, but only when he ensures that ‘‘no one was going to suspect me.’’ • Such decisions demonstrate the self-serving interests of human nature, which tends to make unethical choices when confronted by difficult situations, and as Edward's character illustrates, cowardice further complicates a lack of ethical conviction.

25. Besides Edward and Mary, other townsfolk succumb to the same temptation offered by the sack of gold, including the Coxes, the Wilsons, and the Billsons. • In this way, the story represents an honest, universal response of human nature to the temptation of "easy" money. • Although the residents of Hadleyburg are not consciously predisposed to sin, their collective response suggests the innate weakness of human nature.

26. The Eden Myth and the “Fortunate Fall” • Critics have described ‘‘The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg’’ as a story of ‘‘the fortunate fall.'‘ • In other words, the moral regeneration comes through learning from past mistakes. • Thematically similar to the biblical story of Adam and Eve and John Milton's Paradise Lost, the town's debacle results in improved understanding, or as Mary says, protected and untested virtue is as sturdy as a house of cards.

27. Although the townsfolk lose their "Eden," in the process they learn a practical means to achieve honesty. • After their hypocrisy is exposed, Hadleyburg will seek out temptation in order to test and solidify their virtue, which the town's modified motto indicates: ‘‘Lead us into temptation.’’ • The reformed town realizes that its survival depends on trading its smug standard of honesty for an authentic, provable version.

28. Individual versus Society • Mary and Edward's dilemma in ‘‘The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg'' illuminates the influence of communal values on the lives of individuals, especially how those values override individual judgment. • The town hall scene dramatizes the destructive and seductive nature of conforming to a group identity. • Assuming a "mob" or "herd" mentality, the crowd condemns or praises at the least provocation.

29. For instance, when Wilson accuses Billson of plagiarism, the crowd erupts and ‘‘submerge[s Wilson] in tides of applause,’’ but as soon as they hear of Wilson's fraud, they break into a ‘‘pandemonium of delight’’ and applause becomes ridicule. • In "The Role of Satan in 'The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,'’’ Henry Rule likens the crowd's behavior each time it starts jeering loudly to the unthinking and impulsive behavior of the ‘‘automatic dog’’ that ‘‘bark[s] itself crazy.’’ • Rule's comparison places the crowd's reactions on the level of animals, which instinctively respond to any external stimuli.

30. Despite the unappealing portrait of the Hadleyburg community as a mob, the townsfolk discourage nonconformity, as in the cases of Burgess and Goodson. • On the other hand, conformity reaps benefits, as in the case of the Richardses, who yield to public opinion and net $38,500! • Twain ironically represented the real cost of Mary and Edward's "success" by describing their anguished consciences and consequent decay into physical and psychological frailty.

31. Although the story seems to discourage conformity to communal standards, it does not necessarily condone the pursuit of individualism. • Instead, the story turns a cynical eye toward conditions of American society, which advocates individuality and liberty in principle, but in actuality limits personal freedoms under the guise of community standards. • In ‘‘The Lie that I Am I: Paradoxes of Identity in Mark Twain's 'Hadleyburg,''' Earl F. Briden and Mary Prescott claim that the story attempts "to embody a turn-of-the-century American society in which ... a personal, original, and undetermined, freely-willing selfhood could scarcely be found.’’

32. Summary of Themes • Hypocrisy • Morality, Ethics and the Innateness of Human Sinfulness • The Eden Myth and the “Fortunate Fall” • Individual versus Society