A Mythological Approach to a Short Story: Burning Barns

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION1

THESIS STATEMENT1

MYTHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS1

CONCLUSION3

WORK CITED5

Mythological Analysis of Burning Barn

Introduction

The short story Burning Barn was written by Faulkner and published during 1939 in Harper's Magazine for the first time. It was then re-printed in his collection of short stories with the name of Collected Stories in 1950 and in selected Short Stories by William Faulkner in 1961 (Volpe, p. 76). The story is about a ten-year old kid named Sarty Snopes and his father, Abner Snopes. The story is mainly popular for its primary theme, that is the conflict which is between the loyalty to justice, truth and honor, and to one's family. The ten year old Sarty has to face this conflict and is confronted with this dilemma, being a part of initial stages of manhood. Keeping this theme in view, the research will be focusing on providing a mythological analysis of different characters in the story and providing with different aspects of their characters in different situations.

Thesis Statement

The research is A Mythological Analysis of "Barn Burning" by Faulkner", which is base on the question: what does a mythological analysis approach tell us about the story that we didn't notice before?"

Mythological Analysis

In this story, the ten-year boy Sarty faces a situation where he is supposed to chose whether to go with the actions and views of his morally challenging father or to assert and adhere to his own individuality and morality by stepping back and leaving his family behind (Cuizon, 2008). Based on Mythological analysis, Abner Snopes is an inconsiderate and an angry person who tends to hate almost everyone who does not belong to his family or is not a part of his family. On the other hand, Sarty is faced with several situations where he is supposed to choose between his family and morality (Guy, p. 31) Despite of knowing that what his father is doing is wrong and should be done, Sarty still is confused about whether he should be confronting that in the court of justice or not.

As a moral code of justice functions, Sarty tends to develop a sense that barn burning is wrong and his father should not do it, and it is wrong for him to lie about it and participate in it. He understands that if he is going to help his father and lie about it, he would be equally guilty ...