Essay about Critical Analysis of Barn Burning by William...

Critical Analysis of Barn Burning by William Faulkner The story of Barn Burning was first published in the June of 1939 in the Harpers Magazine and later awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award for the best short story of the year. The author, William Faulkner, was one of Americas most innovative novelists. The way he describes the smells, sites and sounds of the rural late 1800s make you feel as if you are there with the characters in this story. Through the use of symbolism, Faulkner tells the story about a relationship of a father and son. Fire was the most vital symbol used and describes the way, Abner, the main character in the story faces all of his challenges. He lived his life like a flaming inferno destroying†¦show more content†¦Abner was a mean and bitter man. Faulkner uses symbols that refer to the dark side and of how ridged Abner was by stating, his father, Stiff in his black Sunday coat, (398) stiff black coat, and his stiff black back, the stiff and implacable li mp of a figure. Abner felt there was discrimination by the rich folks against the poor people and that he was always looked down upon. It was always the other man that got the lucky break and a poor man never would get to be so lucky. The only way he felt he could attempt to get ahead, was to beat the other man to the punch first. Abner was just like the fires he built, uncontrollable, ruthless, and destroying everything he comes in touch with. He was a poor Civil War veteran that traveled from farm to farm as a sharecropper. As a sharecropper his family had to share up too half of his harvest from his crops with the landowner. They always seemed to find work, but had to live in poor conditions. Abner had no hope of improving his financial condition and never new what the future would hold for him and his family from one job to the next. Abner told Sarty You are getting to be a man. You got to learn. You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you aint going to have any blood to stick to you? Abner has a personality that is always us against them. It was the family versus the enemy. For Abner there are two types of people, hisShow MoreRelatedBoth sides of the Coin in William Faulkner’s short story, Barn Burning812 Words   |  3 PagesWilliam Faulkner’s short story, â€Å"Barn Burning,† the character Abner Snopes, who is Sarty’s father as well as a main character of the story, stands out the most compared to other characters because of Faulkner’s description with a sense of irony and critic. Faulkner presents multifaceted characteristics in Abner Snopes that makes the readers think beyond the view of the narrator based on logics and circumstances in Abner’s conditions. 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