Barn Burning Essay. The Story Of A Little Boy

Barn Burning essay is not simple for understanding story. Reading this short story for the first time you can understand nothing. That is why you need to find some Barn Burning analysis essay to help you to clear the situation. On our custom writing service you can read one of the essays on this theme. Maybe you need some other kind of writing work, than you also can ask us for help.

In our Barn Burning essay I am going to tell you about the author. Without knowing his life and writing style, it is very difficult to understand his stories. Later we are going to talk about the main character – a little boy, whose name is rather strange. This young boy is a story teller, he describes all the events from his pion of view. We also will talk a little about the boy’s father, whose behavior is beyond any understanding.

The Author

The short story “Barn Burning” was written by William Faulkner – famous American author. William Faulkner belongs to number of those great writers whose works are really difficult to understand. He has his own art world and the unique type of narration. He prefers to use the long, sometimes complicated phrase; the same events and natures of characters reveal from the different points of view. But after all if you decide to read his stories you will be rewarded. Sometimes these stories help people to find themselves.

William was very talented writer and he was a Nobel Prize laureate. Faulkner was sure, that every writer should ennoble human hearts, revive in them courage and hope, and to support the reader, to help him or her to stand in difficult life situations and to be a winner. William Faulkner had a great interest in such questions as the sense of human life in difficult circumstances or the tragic life in the modern world.  As famous Russian writer Feodor Dostoyevsky told: “Every person is a great secret and all my life I won’t be tired to solve it”. These words were also Faulkner’s motto.

In his novels and stories he created his own area (which was look like his own city Oxford), where most of his characters lived. It was a small area, like stamp, but there lived around the 1200 characters of his different novels and stories. Critics told, that all his writing works are like a huge book, which was written during thirty years. A lot of his stories are about such two families: the Snopes and the Spains.  Each family takes the different place in society. 

The Main Characters

There are not a lot of characters in this story. Only the members of two families.

Colonel Sartoris Snopes – he is a little boy, who tells us an episode from his life. He is ten years old, he is not the one child in his family. From his appearance and his clothes the reader can understand that Snopes are very poor. Because of his life the boy looks like much older.

Abner Snopes – is Sartoris’s daddy. He is always tired and cold person. He never asks somebody’s advice and does everything which considered necessary. It is difficult to say if he loves his wife and children. It seems to me, he thought only about himself. He hates a successful people and always tries to make something bad for them.

Lennie Snopes – Abner’s wife. She is unhappy and always sad woman.  She does not understand her husband, but tries to do all the best to carry about her children.

We can see that Sarty has also two sisters and elder brother. These people have a little role in the story. They always obey their father, do not ask a lot of questions and do everything what Abner tells.

Major de Spain – is a rich landowner. He cannot understand Snope’s behavior. He is shocked when Abner returns the soiled rug.

About the Story

“Barn Burning” was written in 1938 and it is a part of the collection of short stories. This book consists of several cycles, each of them has the main subject and the moral problems. The story "Barn Burning" is included into the cycle "Country" narrating about life and people of deaf corners of the created area in years after the Civil war in America when old moral principles were still strong. In most of Faulkner’s stories all the events are described be a child and the author wants always to emphasize on the difficulties in life.

There are two symbols in this story – the fire and the soiled rug. The rug means comfort and richness, and the fire means the powerlessness and attempt to self-expression. Even Abner does not know the owner of a nice white house, but he hates him! He hates everybody, who is reach and successful. Abner decided that it is better to do harm. That dirty expensive rug killed him.

The Plot

Sartoris is a poor child, he is always afraid of something. He always obeys his father even if he has to tell a lie in the court. The boy cannot understand their life and his father’s behavior, but he does not ask a lot of questions. He does what he is told to do. His father says that family is very important and it is necessary to behave in such a way, that the family will always support you. Abner burns one more barn and the family moves to another place. In a new place they have a new master. From the very beginning Abner spoils the expensive rug. Sarty was afraid, but he likes the white rich house, where the landowner lives. The boy understands that in such houses people have a peaceful and happy life. In spite of his own strange type of life, the boy dreams about real happiness. And later, when his father was killed, Sarty ran away from his family. He is small, dirty and hungry, but he knows that a new life is possible only far from his family. When his father saw rich people, he tried to do them a lot of harm, though Sarty respects his father, he does not want to be like him.

Having read this short story I was a little bit shocked.  I realize, that the Snopes are not the only one in the world; there are thousands of such families, who are embittered on all the world around. It is necessary to be afraid of such people, they are dangerous to society.