Faulkner's Barn Burning

Faulkner’s Barn Burning provides us with a new component of the South; we are exposed to the views and lifestyle of a poor white family residing in the American South in the post-Civil War era. He presents a criminal family that reinforces the stereotype of Southerners being slow and dumb, especially in his depiction of the twin sisters. They are repeatedly described as having “bovine” characteristics and do not even move when yelled at to catch Sarty at the end of the story. This family does not have the luxurious living conditions of other whites we’ve seen who own vast plots of land and have slaves nor are they treated brutally by a master as slaves were.

Though they are very different from many of the characters we have examined in other works, a similar theme is present in this story as in some of the other pieces. This is the central role that owning land and a family house play in the story. In Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher and in John Pendleton Kennedy’s Swallow Barn, the houses that have been in the family for generations are described in great detail and are the pride of the family (although the House of Usher certainly is a bane to the family as well). Frederick Douglass desires to work his own land and even in early works by Thomas Jefferson and John Smith, owning land was given great importance. In Barn Burning, too, the value of land is felt not by the family’s possession of a grand house but by the reactions of Sarty and Abner to the house of their landlord. Sartoris, who usually has feelings of despair, is filled with a sense of “peace and joy” (166) when viewing the house. He is mesmerized by it. His father, however, is overcome by a “jealous rage” (166) as he looks at the house, which is probably what motivates him to soil the light-colored rug in the house’s entranceway. Abner’s resentment of people who have a glamorous house and wealth is also what probably incites him to burn their barns.

Faulkner does an excellent job of casting Abner as villainous. As in his other works, Faulkner uses repeating images and terms. Faulkner routinely describes the father as wearing a black hat and coat, to suggest his dark intentions, and his heavy-sounding limp foot that makes him seem more powerful than he really is. When looking at the house, Abner also seems to have a “greenish cast” (166), possibly suggesting his jealousy. It is interesting to me that Abner is violent towards his wife, just as John McLendon is in Faulkner’s Dry September, but they are given such different build-ups. McLendon is described as a sweaty, strapping man, trying to rally the town to protect their white women from blacks, while Abner is described as “depthless” and someone who would possibly “cast no shadow” (166), almost as if he is not a person. Both would be considered criminal by today’s standards, so what point do you think Faulkner is making by presenting these characters so differently?

Also, why do you think the boy in this story and Bayard’s father in Faulkner’s The Odor of Verbena are both named Colonel Sartoris?