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, especially as he seems ready to tell the truth about his father? 4.) 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?

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?