Barn Burning By William Faulkn Essay Research — страница 2

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doesn t plan to change for anything or anyone. Sarty is afraid of his father and knows what Abner is capable of. For this reason, Sarty feels the need to be loyal to Abner, his father. At the same time, he realizes that Abner is not accomplishing anything by his actions. Their family is suffering because of Abner. Sarty is slowly growing up throughout the story. As soon as Sarty warns Major de Spain, a landowner who they worked for, of Abner s intention to burn his barn, Sarty mentally made the decision to leave childhood and become a man. At that point he took his future into his own hands and no longer allowed anyone, including Ab, to decide how he would live his life. According to Oliver Billingslea, William Faulkner s Barn Burning is a story about the relationship between a

father and his sons, not only in the hereditary sense of blood ties, but in a spiritual sense as well, especially in respect to how the younger boy s conscience dictates action. It is the story of one boy s relationship to what Faulkner called the old verities and truths of the heart, evidenced in Sarty s quest for a father figure that will give meaning and order to his life (Billingslea 287). Nicolet s discussion takes a different approach in his criticism: William Faulkner s Barn Burning is essentially a morality play in which good and evil, embodied in the conflict between Abner Snopes (who represents what will become Snopesism in general) and the essentially decent by relatively powerless world of the Justice of the Peace s court and symbolized by the two parts of young Sarty

s name (Colonel Sartoris Snopes), battle for the boy s soul (Nicolet 25). In Faulkner s Barn Burning three main characters stand out–Major de Spain Abner, and Sarty. Major de Spain is a member of the Southern aristocracy, but with a qualification: his name, which connects him with neither the Protestant upper class nor the Bourbons or other French-descended grandees of the Old South. The name de Spain suggests the nearly submerged Spanish presence in Louisiana and Florida, or even the Creole, or light skinned free blacks of New Orleans (Short Stories For Students 4). In the story Abner has a fiery ego and a chip on his shoulder. He takes offense with authority (the landowners), and his life seems to be a series of circumstances that invoke offense, revenge, and running away

after he burns the barns. According to Loges criticism, Abner Snopes is depicted as a man who will not hesitate to evoke the power of fire against those who oppose him. In Barn Burning the narrator suggests that for Abner, fire has almost mystical powers . This association with fire provides another correlation with the biblical Abner. Eight times in the Old Testament Abner is referred to as the son of Ner. In Hebrew Net means to glisten or shine as in a lamp (Strong 78-80). The name is derived from a Chaldeean root nuwr, which is translated in the Old Testament as fiery or fire (Strong 77). Thus in the Hebrew, Abner becomes the son of fire or burning (Loges). Loges believes Abner s name and his character are similar to the Bible character Abner in the book of Samuel. In Faulkner

s Barn Burning, another main character is Colonel Sartoris Snopes, or Sarty, as he was called for short. Sarty short for Colonel Sartoris Snopes bears the name of a famous Rebel commander from the civil war under whom, perhaps, his father Abner Snopes served; (Short stories for students 4). In Bradford s criticism, he refers to Sarty as an extraordinary boy who is the young son of Abner Snopes, the head of that despicable clan. In the course of the story Sarty becomes what his given name suggests, a supporter of that larger family that is community and a protector of right order (Bradford 332). Sarty was small and wiry like his father, in patched and faded jeans even too small for him, with straight, uncombed, brown hair and eyes gray. This young boy is torn between loyalty to

his father and morality, and the story deals with this struggle. Sarty is an upright character, changing throughout the story as he moves from sticking to his own blood and instincts to thinking more of himself and his own welfare. At first he is extremely loyal to his father, but as the father digs a deeper hole for himself and his family, Sarty realizes that his life is a vicious cycle of the same situations in every town they live. In the first scene, Sarty knows that his father wants him to lie, and he acknowledges that he will have to do so, despite strong feelings that it is the wrong thing to do. He fears his father more than he wishes to act as he would like to. According to Hiles, You re getting to be a man .You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain t going