Faulkner’s generation was confronted with misconceptions, but the juxtaposition of historical allusions with the experiments of the mind is meant to show that the ideal always exists and is meant to keep people from capitulating. Faulkner’s creation, Barn Burning, forces the reader to look at a harsh world filled with class envy and irrational passion through the eyes of a child, emphasizing moral and spiritual values. The Civil War undoubtedly affected all residents, and the historical allusion embodied in the Snopes family’s helped strengthen the characters’ realism and draw a parallel between the unsustainability and the need for transition. The focus is on the young atypical Snopes, who is torn between his loyalty to the lineage, and blood that “grew thick with violence, atrocities and passions,” and his understanding of decency (Faulkner 8). Snopesism, an abhorrent phenomenon not found only in America, appears in the story as a father who is a stranger to all, yet his son chooses freedom and dignity despite the reality of institutional slavery.
The allusions demonstrate life during the Civil War and how awareness of its aftermath leads to a desire to confront and gain the honor of the father’s name. Although the boy loved his father Sarti was aware of the family’s wrongful pattern of behavior (The CodeX Cantina). Sarti’s thoughts gradually became more profound, leading to the boy’s understanding of the need to leave the family. Sarti loved his father but his inner transformation made the boy renounce his old: “Father. My father, he thought. He was brave! He was in Colonel Satoris’s cavalry! (Faulkner 24). It is unknown whether the father was dead, but the protagonist mentions him in the past tense, asserting that there is no way back. Faulkner shows the insanity and inhumanity of war, where a fighter’s life is priced extremely low by his government, and the image of Sarti demonstrates the school of courage that results in a unique life (The CodeX Cantina). This interpretation demonstrates the irrationality of the old and the need for transition to the new, bringing clarity to the scientific question of the system’s collapse and the reasons for the beginning of modernization.
Works Cited
“Barn Burning by William Faulkner – Review, Analysis, Summary: Short Story Series” YouTube, uploaded by The CodeX Cantina, 2020, Web.
Faulkner, William. Barn Burning. Philomel Books, 1938.