Preview

Marxism in Barn Burning

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
620 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Marxism in Barn Burning
Some of things that people think are built on a righteous foundation are often the result of actions or events that are completely dishonorable. Aspects like wealth and influence can be gained by means that are immoral and inhumane. This is the case with Sarty Snopes' fascination with the wealth of Major deSpain. He cannot see through the huge house and vast estate to the barbarity by which it was obtained. "Hit's as big as a courthouse he thought quietly" (377). Sarty Snopes' feelings towards the deSpains are misplaced due to the deSpains barbaric nature. A poor human condition can pull out a darker nature.
William Faulkner's "Barn Burning" takes place in the south during the post-Civil War era. During this time many people were adjusting to a life without slaves. Before the war, people gained wealth at the expense of cheap labor from slaves. Slavery was one of the few ways that people could manage a huge estate like the deSpain's and still be able to turn a profit. It is evident in the story that the deSpain's were possible slave owners given the fact they still have Black help now. The deSpains probably owned many more slaves before the end of the war when the institution was outlawed. Based on these facts the barbarity of the deSpains is clear. The deSpains can also be considered barbaric in the way they maintain their wealth during the time Sarty and his family move onto the deSpain's property.
Because of the absence of slavery, the deSpains now maintain their land by means of sharecropping. Sarty's father indicates how he feels about the mansion, and his new boss, "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" (378). Sarty and his family are now some of deSpain's modified slaves. The fact that Major deSpain can force any race into cheap labor shows his complete lack of concern for human welfare. This lack of concern is evident when Sarty's father damages

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the Old South was a time when slavery and cotton were the most profitable industries, so plantation owners were often rich men. The O’Hara family lived in Twelve Oakes, which in the movie was a wealthy plantation. They had three slaves, Mammy, Pork, and Prissy. The slaves in this household were treated humanely and kindly, rather than the normal management of slaves in the 1800s. Slaves, who normally worked long hours on a plantation or in a household, were usually put down and shown prejudiceness. In fact, at one point in the novel, Mammy referred to the outside slaves as field hands and looked disapprovingly at the ex-slaves while traveling to Atlanta with Scarlett. However, they were still slaves and considered below the white race, and the O’Hara’s talked curt to the slaves at times. At one point in the film, Scarlett slapped Prissy when she was angry that she did not know how to deliver a baby, after she told her that she could. The O’Hara’s slaves wore old uniforms, while the field workers wore rugged rags as clothing.…

    • 780 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    To what degree was Parchman, a so-called “farm with slaves,” an improvement over convict leasing? I guess what I am really asking is to which system—convict leasing or Parchman—does the title, Worse Than Slavery, apply? Convict leasing was horrifically violent and inhumane while Oshinsky describes Parchman thusly: “In design, it resembled an antebellum plantation with convicts in place of slaves” (139). How might a convict who had the misfortune to serve in both of these systems respond to this question? I could draw quite a few different explanations from the book to answer these questions. The title of Oshinsky’s narrative Worse Than Slavery seems to be more of an accurate description of the convict leasing system then to the Parchman Farm state penitentiary. When comparing the institution of slavery to both the convict leasing system and Parchman Farm, many similarities and differences can be made between the two. Both systems purely existed for the exploitation of cheap labor rather than criminal rehabilitation. However, the people who benefitted the…

    • 1169 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Faulkner's "Barn Burning" involves the Snopes, a sharecropper family that has moved 12 times in the memory of the primary participant, Sarty. Sarty is the youngest of four children to Abner and Lennie Snopes. The older brother and twin sisters are not named. Also with the family is Lennie's sister, Lizzie. Of this family, Abner and Sarty are the most active, around whom the theme focuses. Also, the land owner, Major de-Spain, is the latest target and recipient of Abner's retaliation. Sarty's type of character is rounded and dynamic while his father and Major de-Spain are flat and static.…

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sammy from John Updike’s “A&P” and Sarty from William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” are two great examples of young people raising their standards and doing what they believe is right. In “A&P”, Sammy is nineteen years old and works at a local grocery store named the A&P. His life changes the day he quits his job after defending three girls that are “called out” by Lengel, the manager, for breaking the unwritten dress code. In “Barn Burning”, Sarty is a ten year old boy who struggles between the fine line of right and wrong when his father, Abner Snopes, is put on trial for burning down a barn. When his father attempts to burn down another barn, Sarty takes charge and warns the owner. “A&P” and “Barn Burning” are short story classics that have many similarities as well as differences. While both Sammy and Sarty are dissatisfied with their figures of authority, the time periods in which they live are extremely different.…

    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Big Daddy could be considered the epitome of pride in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He owns “twenty-eight thousand acres of the richest land” (112), all of which he gained through hard work and dedication during his early life. Time never went to waste when it came to Big Daddy for, “Being a success as a planter is all [he] ever had any devotion to in [his] whole life” (111). The pride that he has for his large estate is genuine and well deserved, although the effects it has are not always positive. Similar to blinders on a horse, Big Daddy’s pride often causes him to lose sight of those around him. Harming…

    • 1015 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In William Faulkner's 1939 short story "Barn Burning," a young boy, Colonel Sartoris Snopes (Sarty), is faced with and forced to endure the abusive and destructive tendencies of his father, Abner Snopes. As the story unfolds, several examples can be found to illustrate Faulkner's use of symbolism to allow the reader to sense the disgust for Abner Snopes, the significance in the lack of color usage throughout the story, and finally, Sarty's journey.…

    • 1047 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Barn Burning Sarty

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the short story “Barn Burning” written by author William Faulkner written in 1939 readers meet the Snope’s family. The character who stood out initially was the youngest son who goes by the name of Colonel Sartoris Snopes also known as Sarty. Throughout the story readers watch as the main character, Sarty, becomes his own person (transforming into adulthood) beginning from struggling to tell the truth in order to protect his family. Sartoris battles between being morally righteous or remaining loyal to his family even though they are doing wrong.…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    George Harris

    • 1999 Words
    • 8 Pages

    “Colonial and state laws considered [slaves] property and commodities, not legal persons who could enter into contracts, and marriage was, and is, very much a legal contract” (Williams 1). As a result, on the account that a slave was considered property by the government, his marriage was not legally protected and could be dissolved by his master at any given moment. This is seen by the reader when George Harris was removed from his successful job at a manufacturing company by order of his master, Mr. Harris, and moved to a southern plantation away from his wife, Eliza Harris and son, Harry. George told his wife that Mr. Harris “won’t let me come here any more, and that I shall take wife and settle down on his place” (Stowe 21). His master’s willingness to take George away from his family and replace his wife with another woman is done to exhibit a master’s control over a slave’s life and also Mr. Harris’ lack of empathy towards his feelings. A second incident in which a marital separation, involved Uncle Tom and Aunt Chloe, a farmhand and the head cook on the Shelby plantation, and had occurred after Tom was one of the slaves sold in order to repay Mr. Shelby’s debt to a trader named Mr. Haley. Arthur Shelby explains the deal to his wife by saying, “I’ve raked, and scraped,…

    • 1999 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Marxism In Pol Pot

    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The policies pursued by Pol Pot were done in order to maintain ideological purity, absolute control, and party security. So, did philosophers like Fanon and Marx have an undermining influence on the morals of elitists in the political realm? In response to the extreme process of purification from anything “other”, Fanon stated that, “violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect” (p.35). If this is reflective of the anti-colonialism revenge that KSA advocated while they were in Paris, then it is plausible that Pol Pot was still seeking a personal vendetta from European powers. At its core, Marxism-Leninism is inherently oppressive. Isolated from the ideas of Lenin, Marxist philosophy determines that violence is often necessary for a communist revolution to succeed (Vandenbroek, 2008). On the contrary, Marxists tend to have a proclivity toward arguing that murder and mayhem found in any Marxist regime from Lenin to Pol Pot, is an exception and not a true Marxist society.…

    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Furniture Fire

    • 496 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In 1992, an accidental fire destroyed a furniture company’s warehouse in Tampa, FL. Upon these findings, the furniture company made a claim to their insurance company for demand of lost profits. In doing so, the furniture company submitted a profit calculation, or the GPF, of the burned inventory. There no sales receipts and the prices were unknown conveniently allowing the furniture company to use 253 random invoices pulled from the 3005 total invoices from 1991 to calculate the average GPF or Gross Profit Factor to determine their loss. These invoices were then separated into 2 groups. One consisting of 134 samples and the other one had 119 samples. The GPF calculated for the group with 134 samples was 50.5%. The GPF for the group with 119 samples was 51.0%. The average GPF for the two was 50.8%. The average GPF for this type of business is on somewhere close to 48%, the insurance company contested this while the furniture company maintained that the samples were chosen completely at random. The furniture company is attempting to claim a loss of $812,800 while the insurance company thinks the maximum value of this case is $768,000 using the Average GPF. The difference from the claim the furniture company filed and what the insurance company thinks the actual loss is $44,800 in favor of the furniture company, which would be insurance fraud if the furniture company were found guilty in court. A lawsuit was soon filed due to the discrepancies. During the discovery phase of the lawsuit, when both side submit all of the information they have to each other, the insurance company hired an independent CPA firm to calculate the GPF. To determine fraud, our group had to find the probability that a standard normal random variable exceeded the GPF samples given to us. We used the entire data set of 3,005 invoices as the population,…

    • 496 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He knows what his father does is wrong, but he his reminded by his father that he must remain loyal. “You’re getting to be a man. You got to learn. You got to stick to your own blood or you ain’t going to have any blood to stick to you” (342). Marilyn Ford states, “Sarty 's father, terrorizes his son and impels him prematurely toward manhood when Sarty must choose between the dictates of his own conscience and his father 's frontier justice” (527). Although, he knows his father is a barn burner he defends his father after they leave the court room. He gets into a fight with some boys who call his father a barn burner. This shows he is willing to defend his father and that he will remain loyal when…

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    They believed they owned the slaves—not as people but as property. This sense of ownership blinded slave owners with greed and self-indulgence. They were focused on making profits and abusing their “property.” They were working towards immorality and corruption without the slightest remorse of their actions. However, there were some owners who, compared to others, treated their workers with a bit more compassion. These owners taught their laborers how to read and write. They, although seemingly cruel to their fellow Northerners, didn’t abuse their right of ownership. Instead of completely taking control of a slave’s mind, they gave him a taste of the outside world to suppress their rebellious mindsets. Owning slaves gave southerner’s power over them, granting them…

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In an essay explain how the ideals of "Marxism" diffused out during the twentieth century and compare/contrast each of the diffusions (implementations) with the original ideals of the Communist Manifesto. Focus on implementation, propaganda, and success/failures. Use the above links, your chapter, the documents and visual sources to help you with this essay. This is meant to be a two-three page essay; this does not include a cover page or work cited page. The essay should be 12 pt font, double spaced and have one inch margins.…

    • 87 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Barn Burning

    • 906 Words
    • 4 Pages

    William Faulkner’s Barn Burning is reflective of the dynamics domestic violence plays in family relationships and this is shown in the traits exhibited in the characters in the story. This is evident in the relationship between the children with their parents, the wife with her husband and Abner with his employers. Abner’s controlling nature creates constant conflict throughout the story.…

    • 906 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Karl Marx Capital

    • 1558 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Karl Marx’s Das Kapital: Volume 1, remains to be his greatest achievement and contribution to socio-economic study. First published in 1867, the works critically analyzes the political economy of the nineteenth century. In studying the Marxian view of ‘Co-operation’ we are able to gain insight into why organizations exist. Marx proposes that “the end aim of capitalist production, is to extract the greatest possible amount of surplus value, and consequently to exploit labor-power to the greatest possible extent” (Marx, 227).…

    • 1558 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays