Barn Burning William Faulkner

Biography William Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi. During his adolescent years he was motivated to attend school and even skipped the second grade. Unfortunately, while becoming a young adult he grew less fond of his studies and dropped out of high school when he was fifteen. In 1918 he was rejected from the U.S Air Force since he did not meet weight and height requirements, he then returned home to Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner attended University of Mississippi where he wrote the school newspapers and magazines. Due to his upbringing in the South which is duly noted in his literature works of art, Barn Burning would be considered his fictional representation of the merciless, money-making New South versus the land-owning, noble Old South. Barn Burning, part of a trilogy, also incorporates some aspects of his family life, for instance being brought in the times of the great depression. Barn Burning captures of the life of the south during this time period through his setting, characters, and symbols. In 1949, he won the Nobel Prize for literature which he used the income to establish a scholarship fund for black students. William Faulkner believed in integration of the South rather than segregation. William Faulkner “tells the story of his region and of his nation, to demonstrate the often tragic inextricability of past and present, to show the human capacity for baseness and for nobility, to search for truth and meaning in a world where values seem constantly to shift and to erode.” (Minter)

Literary Critique In the beginning, “Barn Burning” appears to be a story about a harsh father and his family, who seems to be caught up in his devilish ways. As you read further in to the story you find that the story is focused on the protagonist or son a poor sharecropper, Colonel Sartoris Snopes, who has to struggle with his father’s arsonist tendencies which are destroying his families’ reputation and life style,

Cited: Bertonneau, Thomas. "Barn Burning."Short Stories for Students. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Literature Resource Center.Web. 11 Nov. 2012. Faulkner, William. “Barn Burning” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. Boston: Pearson, 2013. 155-167.Print. McDonald, Hal. "Faulkner 's 'Barn Burning. '." Explicator 61.1 (Fall 2002): 46-48. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 92. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 Nov. 2012. Minter, David. "William Faulkner." William Faulkner. Pearson Education, n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2012. Yunis, Susan S. "The Narrator of Faulkner 's 'Barn Burning '." The Faulkner Journal 6.2 (Spring 1991): 23-31. Rpt. in Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 Nov. 2012.