Barn Burning

Introduction

William Faulkner's story “Barn Burning,” first published in Harper's Magazine in 1939 and winner of an O. Henry story award for that year widely anthologized. It and “A Rose for Emily” are the most common introductions to Faulkner in high-school and college American literature courses (Bloom, pp. 233).

Discussion

At the time that William Faulkner's short story “Barn Burning” was first published in Harper's Bazaar in 1939, the American and global economies crippled by the depression, Americans disturbed about the threat of communism, Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin were in power, and World War II was just erupting. Bleakness and despair were prevalent tones in American life and American literature. No less, so than in Faulkner's story about Colonel Sartoris “Sarty” Snopes and his father, Abner Snopes. “Barn Burning” is a story of raw anguish and torment, both physical and psychological (Phillips, pp. 109). The work reflects the political, economic, and philosophical climate of a troubled era. Yet, Faulkner manages to raise a banner of hope and reassurance for the reader in the final hour. It is, indeed, the final hour when, in the last two paragraphs, a sense of relief comes over the reader as the fate of the boy suddenly shifts. The ending is neither melodramatic nor burdened with the implausibility of a deux et machina effect.

How is it that we arrive in the end at a place of reassurance that all will be well? Faulkner first delivers a tale of woe. What could be more woeful than a timid ten year old who must trail behind a deceitful arsonist father, bearing witness to countless violent acts, as the family migrates from one run-down hovel to the next? Young Sarty's life is set against an environmental backdrop of drab land, endless, shoddy housing, and a debilitating family existence. His life is one of monotony as seen in the following passage:

“The wagon went on. He did not know where they were going. None of them ever did or ever asked, because it was always somewhere, always a house of sorts waiting for them a day or two days or even three days away” (Faulkner, pp. 23).

The tone in the above passage reflects a weariness and boredom with an unchanging landscape for young Sarty. As migrant sharecroppers, only the Snopes' family had short-term stability. To compound matters, there was also very little emotional stability. Abner made Sarty privy to his vengeful and fatal acts of violence. He then silenced Sarty with a combination of violence and psychological manipulation. Sarty was torn between a need for safety and a need to protect the victims who suffered at his father's hands. Some critics maintain that Sarty faced with a moral issue and that “Barn Burning” is a story of morality, which filled with hope when he makes the good and rational choice. Karl Zender states, “Sarty's final, climactic decision to break away from his father's rule seen as proof of his own ultimate moral correctness against demonic qualities” (Skei & Faulkner, pp. 131). Except Sarty ...