William Faulkners Barn Burning Essay -- Faulkner Barn Burning

William Faulkners bacillus BurningWilliam Faulkner, recognized as one of the topping writers of all time, at one time made a speech as he accepted his Nobel prize for writing in which he stated that a large piece of writing should contain the truths of the heart and the conflicts that arise over these truths. These truths were hunch forward, honor, pity, pride, compassion and sacrifice. Truly it would be hard to argue that a story without these truths would be considered change surface a good story let alone a great one. So the question brought forward is whether Faulkner uses his own truths of the heart to make his story Barn Burning. Clearly the answer to this question is yes his use of the truths of the heart are prevalent throughout the story and to illustrate this to the reader we will focus in on two of them love and pride.There are many places throughout the story which love clearly comes in conflict with morality, kinship, and even other truths of the heart. The fi rst of these, and credibly the most dramatic, is in the first few paragraphs of the story. A young boy named Sarty, who is the son of Abner Snopes, the barn burner of the story, is called to the radical to testify about his fathers behavior. On his style to the stand the reader is clued into what the boy is thinking and it is very clear he is feircely aligned with his father or his blood kin. As he approaches the stand Sarty has many thoughts run through his head about how the Judge is the enemy our enemy he thought in that despair ourn Mine and hisn both Hes my father (Faulkner 161) It is clear that the love of his father is getting in the way of his thoughts of morality because he is almost willing to lie for his father. However Sarty nearly confesses that... ...t to enter, he tells him to get out of my way(Faulkner 166) as he steps into the house and tracks his horse manure all over their very expensive rug. Then when the lady of the house tells him to leave he quickly obe ys her after swiveling around on his heel to grind the fecal matter in even further. As he is leaving he once again makes a derogatory remark to the butler. This is probably when Abners motivation becomes the most clear. He only if feels superior to blacks in which case meant everyone else around him was somehow superior and therefore he felt as though every action they took was a threat to him and damaged his pride in himself which forced him to retaliate the only way he knew how, burning barns.CitationsFaulkner, William. Barn Burning. Literature A Portable Anthology. Ed. Janet E Gardner, et al. Boston Bedford/St. Martins, 2004. 161-175