Barn Burning

William Faulkner1897-1962

William Faulkner

• 1897-1962

William Faulkner’s life

• Born near Oxford, Mississippi in 1897• Great-grand father: a local legend - colonel in the Civil

War, lawyer, railroad builder, financier, politician, writer, public figure shot and killed by a business and political rival in 1889.

• Father loved to hunt, drink and swap stories with his hunting friends; mother, ambitious, sensitive and literary, loved him the most of her four sons, died in 1907.

• Dropped out of high school in 1915.• Enlisted in the British Royal Flying Corps in 1918• Published a collection of poems in 1924, first novel

Soldier’s Pay in 1926, the first significant novel Sartoris in 1929.

• Married his high school love Estelle Oldham in 1929, now divorced and returned to Oxford with two children.

• Awarded Nobel Prize in 1950

William Faulkner’s major works

Novels• The Sound and the Fury (1929) • As I Lay Dying (1930) • Light in August (1930) • Absalom, Absalom (1936)Short fiction (short stories)• “A Rose for Emily” (1930)• “Dry September” (1931)• “That Evening Sun” (1931)• “Barn Burning” (1938)

Which William Faulkner?

• Regionalist: ‘the postage stamp of my little native soil’ ( 我那片像邮票一样大小的故乡 ).

• Traditionalist: conventional themes - themes of morality, of the relationships between

individuals & community, ancient myths & modern decay, traditional value & historical change, of the conflict between South and North, and of the relationship between past and present, or most essentially as Faulkner said in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, of “the human heart in conflict with itself”.

• Modernist: experimentalist in art; radical views of art, his new concept of narration and his readiness for stream-of-consciousness

William Faulkner’s South

• Yoknapatawpha county• The Southern aristocrat - decline of the Compson, Sartoris, Benbow,

McCaslin families• The illiterate poor white - rise of the unscrupulous （无耻） Snopes

family• The Negro• The Indians* The sin of pride dooms the ambitious

families while lowly blacks and poor whites endure.

Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech by William Faulkner 1

• “the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself … alone can make good writing” and “only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.”

• 单写人类内心冲突的问题就能创作出好作品，而且这也是唯一值得写、值得为之呕心沥血去写的题材。

Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech by William Faulkner 2

• “love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice” are “the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed.”

• 不反映爱、荣誉、怜悯、自尊、同情与牺牲这些古老的普遍真理，任何小说都只能昙花一现，不会成功。

Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech by William Faulkner 3

• Man is immortal “because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.” “The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”

Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech by William Faulkner 4

• 人之不朽 “是因为他有灵魂，有同情心、有牺牲和忍耐精神。”

• “ 诗人和作家的责任就是把这些写出来。诗人和作家的特殊光荣就是去鼓舞人的斗志，使人记住过去曾经有过的光荣——人类曾有过的勇气、荣誉、希望、自尊、同情、怜悯与牺牲精神——以达到不朽。诗人的声音不应只是人类的记录，而应是使人类永存并得到胜利的支柱和栋梁。”

Background

• Union / Confederate states

• Sharecropping / sharecropper / cropper

• White trash

sharecropping

• White landowners • Sharecroppers:

- Ex-slaves (blacks)

- Poor whites• Half-half share of the harvest• 70-30 share• High interest charges of the loaned tools,

animals, and money tied croppers to the land• 30-70 share

white trash

• poor whites outcast from respectable society living on the fringes of the social order

• who are seen as dangerous because they may be criminal, unpredictable, and without respect for authority whether it be political, legal, or moral.

Barn Burning Introduction

• The story won the O. Henry prize the year it was published (1938), and has been adapted for the screen in 1980. It is a prequel to The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion. These three novels make up the "Snopes" trilogy.

• Setting: - southern small towns about 30 years after the Civil

War (1895)• Characters: - Abner Snopes is a sharecropper - Colonel Sartoris Snopes (Sarty) is a ten-year-old boy - landowners: Mr. Harris, Major de Spain

Discussion Questions

1. What is the nature of the story's conflict? How does each of the story's six scenes serve to reveal, clarify, and intensify the conflict?

2. What seems to motivate Abner's violent, antisocial behavior? Why does he try to make his son Sarty an accomplice to the burning of Major de Spain's barn? Why does Sarty fianally defy him and try to warn Major de Spain?

3. The character of Abner Snopes4. The character of Sarty5. What comments does the story offer about the

social, moral, and economic values of the old and the new South?

nature of the story's conflict

• Conflict within Sarty’s mind

Scene I (pp.166-168)• Setting

- an afternoon in the store• Characters

- Sarty

- Abner

- Mr. Harris

- Justice of the Peace

- audience (townspeople, half-grown boys)

- Sarty’s brother, sisters , mother, aunt• Event

- Mr. Harris sues Abner for burning his barn

- fight between Sarty and another boy

Scene I (pp.166-168)Questions

1. From whose point of view is the scene described?

2. What do the following phrases reveal about Sarty’s feelings?

- the smell and sense just a little of fear because mostly of despair and grief, the old fierce pull of blood (para. 1, p. 166)

- the smell of cheese and sealed meat, the fear and despair and the old grief of blood (middle para., p. 167)

- grim faces (p. 167)

- feeling no floor, weightless, no blow, … (p. 167)

Scene II (pp.170-171)

• Setting

- early next afternoon at Major de Spain’s house• Characters

- Abner

- Sarty

- the old Negro watchman

- Miss Lula (wife of Major de Spain)• Event

- Abner stains the rug with fresh horse droppings

Scene II (pp.170-171)

• Questions

1.What is Sarty’s impression of Major de Spain’s house?

2.How is his mood changed?

- a surge of peace and joy (p.170)

- the spell of the house

Scene III (pp.171-173)

• Setting

- late that afternoon in the rent house of the Snopes• Characters

- Sarty, mother, aunt

- Major de Spain and his Negro youth servant

- brother

- father, two sisters• Event

- rug washing

Scene III (pp.171-173)

• Questions

1.How does Sarty react to the appearance of Major de Spain?

2.How does Sarty react in the whole process of rug washing?

Scene IV (p.173)

• Setting

- early next morning (Wednesday) in Major de Spain’s lot• Characters

- father, brother, Sarty

- Major de Spain• Event

- Major de Spain tells Abner that he will charge Abner a compensation of 20 bushels for the ruined rug.

Scene IV (p.173)

• Questions

1. How does Sarty react to Major de Spain’s claim for a compensation?

2. What is his intention in offering to help his father hide the harvested corn? (p.173)

3. What has Sarty been doing after that?

- working hard

- dreaming (p.174)

Scene V (pp.174-75)

• Setting

- Saturday morning in a store• Characters

- Sarty, Abner, brother

- Justice of the Peace

- Major de Spain

- audience • Event

- Abner sues Major de Spain for charging him too high a price for the damaged rug.

Scene V (pp.174-75)

• Question

• What is Sarty’s reaction?

- similar to the last scene, trying to appease his father (p.175)

Scene VI (pp.176-78)

• Setting

- Saturday night from the Snopes’ house to Major de Spain’s house to a hill top

• Characters

- Sarty

- father, brother, mother, aunt

- Major de Spain and his men• Event

- Sarty tries to stop his father from burning Major de Spain’s barn by reporting to Major de Spain of his father’s intention.

Scene VI (pp.176-78)

• Questions

1.When is the most intense moment of conflict within Sarty’s mind?

- in the whole process of his running to Major de Spain and to his father

2. The word “run” is repeated many times in the description of Sarty in this scene. What does it indicate about Sarty?

Conflict within Sarty

• Despair and Grief due to the conflict between - Loyalty to blood, family and father “the old fierce pull of blood” (p.166, 167, 170, 174,

176, 178) - Sense of honor, justice and responsibility for the

community; dream of good and comfortable life “the smell of cheese and hermetic meat” (p.166-7) “a lane of grim faces”, “the palpable weight of grim

turning faces” “two lines of grim-faced men” (p.167) “peace and dignity” of Major de Spain’s house

(p.170)

What motivates Abner’s violent, antisocial behavior?

• Abner’s imbalanced state of mind, “ravening and jealous rage” at the great gap between his poverty and the landowners’ richness

• Why barn burning instead of other ways?

Abner vs. landowner

• “Pretty and white, ain’t it? … That’s sweat. Nigger sweat. Maybe it ain’t white enough yet to suit him. Maybe he wants to mix some white sweat with it” ( 陶洁 171)

- a comment on Major de Spain’s house

- indicating Abner’s despise of and hostility toward the landowner

Characters – Abner Snopes

• mercenary Civil War veteran / former horse thief • Abusive and violent• Tough – unyielding, stubborn; hardened; rough

(“stiff foot” “stood stiffly” “planted stiffly on the stiff foot”, 170-177; “hard” arm and hand,p.173)

• Wolflike ravening ferocity (p.168)• Full of jealousy and resentment against

landowners

Symbol of fire and related images

• Small campfires made by father - "neat, niggard almost, shrewd“ (p. 168) - “the one weapon for the preservation of integrity”

(p. 169)• With fire, Ab feels powerful and feels that he can

control his fate. - strike mules and Sarty, shout at the niggar

“without heat” (p. 168, 169, 171) - saving energy to fight against landowners - a man of action, not of words or feelings

Characters - Sarty

• Impassioned & sensitive

• Love for his family

• Love and admiration for his father

• Sense of justice and responsibility for the community

• Brave

• Naïve (father’s bravery, world’s wealth distribution and concept of justice)

The old and the new South

• Social, moral and economic values of the old South

- plantation economy / hierarchy (aristocracy, slavery) / honor

• Social, moral and economic values of the new South

- agriculture / sharecropping system / money-oriented (capitalism) / pragmatism

Assignments for HemingwayAssignments for Hemingway’’s s ““A A Clean, Well-lighted PlaceClean, Well-lighted Place””

• Read the story and write a short review Read the story and write a short review about one aspect of the story, such as about one aspect of the story, such as

a. the themea. the theme

b. the character(s)b. the character(s)

c. the stylec. the style

d. the artistic device (image, symbol…)d. the artistic device (image, symbol…)

e. topics on the textbook (p185).e. topics on the textbook (p185).