Barn Burning Essay -- essays papers

Barn keen throughout the story Barn Burning, author William Faulkner conveys the moral growth and schooling of a young boy, as he must make a critical decision between either choosing his family and their teachings or his own morals and values. The reader should realize that the story Barn Burning was written in the 1930s, a time of economic, social, and cultural turmoil. Faulkner carries these themes of despair into the story of the Snopes family. Faulkner opens the story, Barn Burning in a southern courthouse room of the during the Civil War reconstruction era, also a time of social, cultural, and economic instability. At this point in the story the main characters, Abner (Ab) and his son, Colonel Sartoris Snopes (Sarty) are introduced. Ab is on trial for the malevolent burning of a barn that was owned by a moneyed local farmer. For Sartys entire life he and his family had been living in poverty. His father, who had always been jealous of the good life, takes hi s frustrations out against the post-Civil war grandeur by burning the barns of wealthy farmers. As most fathers do, Ab makes the try on to pass his traits and beliefs on to his son, whom does not necessarily agree nor fully sympathize his fathers standpoint. The following passage is an example of how Sarty is taught that both(prenominal) good justice and wealth is the opposite of his family He could not see the fudge where the nicety sat and before which his father and his fathers enemy (our enemy he thought in that despair ourn Mine and hisn both Hes my father) stood, but he could not let out them, the two of them that is, because his father had said no word yet.After the Justice had declared that there was not a substantial amo... ...cept the end of mankind I believe that man will not merely leap out he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an straight-out voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of gentleness and sacrifi ce and heroism. I believe that Faulkner displayed this belief throughout this story. He shows that Sarty is a soul that is compassionate when he mourns his father in the last few paragraphs of the story. He exemplifies sacrifice when Sarty must sacrifice the safety and lives of his family members for his own morals. Finally, Faulkner conveys endurance when the child comes to the realization that he may not return to the living(a) members of his family, and that he must continue to live on his own.BibliographyWorks CitedMeyer, M., Ed., (1999). The Bedford initiation to Literature, 5th Ed. Boston Bedford/St. Martin.