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Abner Snopes In The Barn Burning

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In the story “The Barn Burning” there are two main characters, Abner Snopes (father), and Sarty Snopes (son). The father Abner is portrayed as a middle aged man who has never really found his identity. In the story he cannot hold down a job or much less save enough money to provide his family with a home to live in. The family wanders from town to town in a covered wagon looking for a farm to share crop on. He has been doing this for so long that it is a way of life for him and his family. Abner has a very dark side to him; he carries a sort of a resentment to the world. Abner’s inability to conform to society has lead him to become a serial arsonist. The only way Abner can feel equal in class or gain any sense of control over people is to …show more content…

They were following the same routine as always, everyone knew their duties. Abner at this point was beginning to feel resentment towards his father. The more he thought about his child hood, the more he believed his father had a real problem. He was thinking to himself he could wait until he got away from his father and could be on his own (1190). As his father walked up to this beautiful house he intentionally stepped into a pile of horse manure (1191). His father knocked on the door, a servant answered, his father forced his way inside the house to intentionally smear horse manure on the rug (1191). Sarty’s suspicions were concreted in by his father’s actions now. Abner had a serious problem, he had a resentment towards other people for no apparent reason at all. Abner felt he must destroy property to make himself feel better. The owner of the house demanded Abner clean the rug that he had imported from France. Abner had his wife and daughter attempt to clean the rug but ruined it in the process (1193). The owner of the rug demanded that Abner be held accountable for ruining the rug and repay him by giving him a portion of the crop he would have earned by sharecropping his land

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This passage from William Faulkner's "Barn Burning" is written to establish the beginnings of the breakdown of the Snopes family - and of Sarty himself - through the destructive storm that is Abner Snopes. The difference in character between Sarty and his father being described in the paragraph shows the beginnings of a rift between father and son. Where Sarty is very expressive as he is "leaping" and "scrabbling" in a "red haze", Abner emotes in a very contained fashion. Though Abner is "harsh" and "cold" as he "jerk[s]" his son, the words are of a very smothered sort of anger. This clear opposition in temperament between the two men direct the reader towards and impending future division.

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Harris’s barn was aflame; he was only able to rescue the livestock from inside. Abner believed that Mr. Harris had wronged him by charging a dollar to take back the pig that escaped; consequently, he burned Mr. Harris’s barn. Burning property is the only way Abner knows how to handle his sense of anger and vengeance. Faulkner writes, “that the element of fire spoke to some deep mainspring of his father’s being … as the one weapon for the preservation of integrity, else breath were not worth breathing, and hence to be regarded with respect and used with discretion” (228). When reading this short story, the question may arise as to why Abner burns the barn but not the farm houses.

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The perception of Abner’s perfidious nature is undeniably evident within the early paragraphs of the story. Although unknown to Sarty, the treacherous act leading to the limp of his father’s leg is revealed by the narrator. As the first case is being dismissed, Faulkner unveils the context of this deceit by stating, “the wiry figure walking a little stiffly from where a Confederate provost’s man’s musket ball had taken him in the heel on a stolen horse thirty years ago” (258). In addition to revelations of the past, the nomadic- like movements of the family further enhances the scrutiny of the disloyal man who leads them.

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His idiosyncrasy remains loving and understanding, even when his younger son returned home after many of been away with not a penny to his name. The young son showed disobedience to all the goodness his father had offered to him. The young son showed traits such as selfishness as well as being ungrateful. He had no worth for his father’s property nor did he want to work alongside his father on the family farm.

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