John
R. Taylor
Dr.
McKinney
English
251
05-20-94
Barn Burning
A Son's Shame
Anyone
who had the fortune, or misfortune, I can't say which, of growing up in the
deep south of a decade or so ago, has had a chance to feel, taste, smell, and
sense that slower, quieter, and less pressured environment. They would know
what it was like to back up to a fireplace and burn their butt while their
front froze. The damp, almost wet feel of cold sheets would be a part of their
memories of the humid winter nights, as would the heavy, almost suffocating
weight of countless quilts bearing down on them. The sweet smell of
honeysuckle in the spring like the dusty odor of dried tobacco in the autumn
would be but a thought away. Even the most blistering hot, sticky, and
stifling summer day would be recalled with a bit of joy.
William
Faulkner has gained much fame for his ability to give those who have never
experienced that time and place a feel of it. In "Barn Burning"
(1798-1812), the reader can not help but get a taste of the culture and flavor
of Mississippi around the turn of the century. The life of a sharecropper,
with its heartaches and trials, comes to life in this work. But it is not that
southern ambiance which is the point. The theme of the story transcends all
societies, cultures and times. It would have equal meaning to a poor family
in New York who's drunken, abusive, and out of work father breaks the heart of
a son who wishes so very hard that he could love and respect him, as it would
to a wealthy one in Hong Kong who's patriarch has accumulated massive riches by
the sweat and toil of small children working in his shirt factory, and his son
feel the same way as the New York son. The grievous dilemma which young
Colonel Sartoris Snopes faces is one that might well have grieved one of the
first humans, and has been a blight on the planet every since. Faulkner is showing
us what a horror it is to try to love and respect a father that is
dishonorable, base, and villainous.
The
world has long been filled with fathers that were unloving, mean, alcoholic,
or abusive. The sons of those fathers tried hard to believe that they were
loved and that their father's were good men. Colonel Sartoris Snopes has that
unreasonable longing, or at lest the hope that Abner Snopes would change. He
hopes for that change, and at the same time makes allowances for his father;
when awed by the grandeur of the landlord's house he thinks to himself,
"Maybe he will feel it too. Maybe it will even change him now from what
maybe he couldn't help but be"(1803). We all want to be loyal to our
parents, if for no other reason than we are a part of them. If they are evil
and of little worth, how can we, being a part of them, be any better? The
young Snopes' conscience has not yet callused enough to let dishonesty not
prick his soul a little, maybe much more than a little. When he thinks he is
going to have to lie for his father he feels "...frantic grief and
despair..." (1799). He thinks, "He aims for me to lie...And I will
have to do hit."(1799). Notwithstanding his frantic grief and despair,
the boy is willing to lie for his father. His father's enemy is his enemy.
Although he is torn early on between loyalty to his blood kin, and his desire
to do good, at first he sticks by his father, all the while yearning that he
will change. As they are run out of yet another town he hopes, "Maybe
he's done satisfied now, now that he has..."(1801) He has the hope, but
he really doesn't believe it will happen.
In
the same way abused little children say that their parents love them and try
to believe it, despite cigarette burns and other heinous scares on their
bodies, the young Snopes tries to come to the aid of his worthless parent.
After having blatantly soiled his landlord's expensive rug, and then with utter
disregard for the property of others, ruining that rug by having his daughter's
negligently and incompetently clean it, the son still takes up for his Pap,
"You done the best you could! ... If he wanted hit done different why
didn't he wait and tell you how?"(1806-7). He tries to support the
no-account Abner Snopes, although he truly knows that the man has never done
his best at anything. The head of the Snopes clan is both negligent an
incompetent, but these faults the son is willing enough to over look. It is
the meanness, the evil, the barn burning, that he ultimately can no longer be a
part of.
At
the climax of the story, the barn burner knows that he has torn his boy's
spirit too far. Before he leaves to do his terrible deed he tells his
daughter, "Hold him ... If he gets loose don't you know what he is going
to do? He will go up yonder," to warn the soon to be victims(1810). At
that point the reader gets a hint that Sarty is not the only one that has been
torn when his aunt says, "Let him go! If he don't go, before God, I am
going up there myself!"(1810).
In
the end, even though the son does go up yonder and warn the folks at the big
house that his father is going to burn down their barn, and has to run away
because of it, he still has a loyalty, maybe love for his Pap. He still tries
to build the low man up. "He was brave! He was! He was in the war! He
was in Colonel Sartoris' cav'ry!"(1811-12). This he says not knowing that
Abner Snopes went to war to gain booty from which ever side it came the
easiest, not knowing this but surly suspecting it.
In
the real world, thirty years ago, a five year old boy stood staring down at
the dime which lay in his open hand. He wanted very much to answer his father,
but he could not decide how the dime had came to belong to him. After what to
the boy seemed like hours, although it was probably no more than a moment two,
the father, in his deep, stern, and always controlled voice said, "Son if
the dime is yours put it in your pocket and let's go. If it's not yours then
put it back where you got it from." With great relief the little boy ran
back to the row of phone-booths and placed the dime carefully back into the
coin return. He then ran back to his fathers side. Had anyone else question
him about the dime he would have said that the rightful owner had forgotten it
and sense it would be impossible to return it to him he might as well keep it.
That's what his mother had said. But his father's standards were higher than
that. So high, some people thought he was silly. Silly he may have been, but
in those thirty years the boy has grown to be a man, and of the weaknesses and
temptations he has had, honesty has not been one of them. That integrity has
given him a sense of self worth that has made his life full. The father, long
ago dead, never achieved greatness in the eyes of the world, yet the son saw a
greatness that was unparalleled. His father commanded the highest respect and
honor.
Faulkner
has created a small poor man. He is not small because he is poor. He may be
poor because he is small, maybe not. What is for certain is that because of
his lack of morel character he has disadvantaged his son much more than any
economic oppression could have done. As the real father gave to his real son
the values that can left anyone out of even the deepest troughs of despair, the
fictional father is trying to curse his son with the bitterness, jealousy, and
wickedness that can dam even the strongest to those troughs of despair.
William
Faulkner has shown us how we are tied, more than we would sometimes like to
think, to our blood kin. If we are raised in a family with honesty like that
of returning the dime to the phone booth we may still not be honest, but would
it not be easier to be? Sarty may grow up to be a good man, but doesn't he
have a harder row to hoe?
John R. Taylor
**** Works Cited ****
Faulkner,
William. "Barn Burning". The Norton Anthology of World
Masterpieces.
Vol. 2 6th edition. Ed. Maynard Mack et.al.
New
York; Norton, 1992. 1798-812.