Critical Analysis

Faulkners “Barn Burnings”

Faulkner not only writes of a family with a flawed father, but also plants many seeds within the story that symbolize turmoil in more subtle ways. Something as mundane as a broken clock, given as a dowry, a gift given at the very onset of a family’s journey, symbolizes dysfunction and a family which may never reach its full potential in society. From hungry children, to symbolic broken furniture, to sisters who are distant and bovine fat, he finds ways throughout the story to imply a tragic family system structure.

      There is a very distinct difference between being and individual and being self centered.    The later can bring new ideas and innovation to an entire community, yet the former can destroy it. What causes one to be productive and the other destructive is hard to see at a glance, yet you can tell by the individuals focus. An individual can think out of the box, invent new things, and is not consumed with self interest. The focus need not be on him, except to the extent that they will utilize their ideas without the need to always follow lock step with society. On the other those that are self centered place no importance on community or individuals, except to the extent either can be used for personal gain. An example of an individual might be Albert Einstein, a man that worked within the community, yet used his unique perspective to come up with the theory of relativity, special relativity and finally won a Nobel Prize in physics for photoelectric effect. Without individuals our world might be a very different place, one of sheep following in lock step or maybe void of man, fall as the doe doe bird. Without individuals communities can not advance and succeed. Self centered individuals on the other hand have no care for society or individuals, lest they can gain from them. They are not concerned with bettering society, helping others and tend to look at the world in regards to what it can do for them. A self centered person is always on the look out to gain from every situation and has neither the time nor inclination to think of others. A few personality types that would be considered self centered would be: (Bullies, Thieves, dictators, etc.). This is but a short list, there are many people in society that are considered self centered. Even parents can be self centered and there are many cases in America of parents that can not see past their own selfishness to give selflessly to their children. Loving parents will stand behind and foster growth in their children. A selfish parent will either see the children as a burden or even take the praise of the child as a way of stroking their own ego. A father that relives his glory days in football through his sons accomplishments, yelling when there are failures on the field and ignoring failures in the classroom, is an example of a self centered parent. The school benefits the child only, while the football gains the parent an ego boost. The two types, individual and self centered, have distinct differences.

      In Faulkner’s Barn burning, he describes a self centered father that has systematically destroyed a family from the very beginning of its inception. We find that Abner’s family is only as important to him as how they make him look in the community. It is as if they have no purpose save to further the extension of his ego. The reader can see this though the description of the different players in the family, lifeless and void of much individual and human emotion.

      Besides the obvious signs of a troubled home, there are subtle hits of turmoil. Faulkner describes the smell of the store and the hunger the boy is obviously feeling while waiting for the trial to end: “The cheese which he knew he smelled and the hermetic meat which his intestines believed he smelled coming in intermittent gusts” (1048). Hunger in and of itself is not a bad thing, but coupled with the other tragic events Faulkner writes about point to acute family turmoil.

      In a more direct attempt at showing dysfunction, Faulkner has Abner Snopes on trial at the beginning of the story and then explains a beating. He goes back to the more hidden symbolism with his detailed description of the broken items in the wagon the family rides away in. Although Faulkner did not go into detail about the burning barn, he surprisingly goes into great length explaining ever last detail of the contents in the wagon:

•  

  [E]ven the boy could remember-the battered stove, the broken beds and chairs, the clock inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which would not run, stopped at some fourteen minutes past two o’clock of a dead and forgotten day and time, which had been his mother’s dowry. (1050)

With the broken clock given as a dowry, Faulkner seems to be implying that maybe even from the beginning the family was doomed to be tragically flawed. Time stands still on the broken clock the same way it does with the family, perpetually in turmoil due to the antics of the father. True, actual time passes, children grow, life events happen, but no meaningful growth toward a common purpose is ever realized by this family, due to the flawed father.

      Each family has a goal or a purpose that they set fourth from the beginning to strive for. Some common goals of families include: happiness, emotional health, physical health and finding a place of belonging in the society they reside in. None of these seem to be present in the family described by Faulkner and he uses something as simple the dowry of a broken clock to cast a shadow of foreboding over the Snopes’ family. The family is that broken clock, looking as if nothing is wrong to the casual observer, as a broken clock needs time to pass to see the flaw, the hands not turning, seconds not passing, before the realization of malfunction is realized. Although the father is the flawed individual, it’s the family as a whole that sufferers from being broken, and will never move forward to realize their full potential in society.

      Faulkner implies hidden troubles for the family again when he describes the two sisters as “hulking” (1050) and “distant”, as if to imply they had and eating disorder and might be introverted due to the family system. Like a cow in a pasture, these sisters are only present physically and absent mentally:

•  

   (The sisters were twins, born at the same time, yet either of them now gave impressions of being, encompassing as much living meat and volume and weight as any other two of the family) not yet having begun to rise from the chair, her head, face, alone merely turned, presenting to him in the flying instant an astonishing expanse of young female features untroubled by any surprise even, wearing only an expression of bovine interest (1058).

Faulkner paints sisters that have for all intensive purposes “checked out” of this family and are merely shells of what they might be in a healthy family unit. The expression bovine interests are a clear indication that these kids have little to no interest in what is going on around them.

      William Faulkner not only shows a dysfunctional and troubled family with obvious signs such as a father on trial and a child being beaten, but also with symbolism throughout the story.  Sure, a casual glance as the story reveals a boy with a tough decision between what he feels is right and what is right for the family, but a deeper look reveals a hidden message of turmoil from day one of this family’s inception. How the boy makes this life decision, and potentially important decisions in the future, will be based on the life experiences, the nurturing and care his father and mother gave him as a young boy. The manifest decision will have more to do with the latent dysfunction in the child’s past rather than the variables of the present situation. A boy’s decisions in life are not separate, but interconnected with the decisions and views of the family system that raised him.  
 

Work Cited

Faulkner, William. “Barn Burning.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina

      Baym. 7th Edition. New York: New York, 2008. 1040-1060.