Personal Journal Response: Barn Burning

Journal Response: Barn Burning
William Faulkner style’s stands out one more time with this work. It is very remarkable the effort he does by implementing symbolisms, visual descriptions, and the lack of certainty in his sentences, as if he wants us to imagine and figure out what he really wants us to think in that moment. For instance, at the end, it seems that he wants us to find out what happened to Sartoris and his family after he escaped and his dad got killed. Through his fiction, he shows a climax with no resolution. In fact, his purpose is to give the reader the duty to conclude a lesson from each scenario. In addition, the plot he makes the audience inferred is very problematic. Faulkner presents two points of view in which the spectator needs to choose the most upstanding. In this work there are two issues in discuss: loyalty to your family vs honesty to yourself and others. He introduces these two topics through Sartoris being loyal to his family, committing crimes commanded by his dad and Sartoris telling the truth to the authorities about what his dad has made
him do. Although this problem is a reality in our past and present, it is still hard to believe that the ones that should protect you and guide you through the right path can actually corrupt your life and involve you in wrong acts. Nevertheless, I can’t argue that the end could not have been better. It might sound harsh, but sooner or later life always gives us a lesson and Mr. Snopes can’t be an exception to that rule. However, the fact that now the head of the house is gone, make us wonder what will happen to this children and what decision are they going to be able to make after knowing that his dad was killed because he was a criminal.
As I mentioned before, one of the problematic in this reading is to be loyal to your family under any circumstance, nonetheless, there might be circumstances where this act of loyalty may sound doubtful. For instance, when Mr.Snoper strikes Sartoris and then says “You’re getting to be a man. You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain’t going to have any blood to stick to you.” Mr. Snoper asks his own son to be witness of his crimes, not only witness, but his party. He asks for an act of faithfulness towards him and his family because if he doesn’t do his part, then nobody will be there to support him. In fact, he is, in some way, threating his own son and cutting off his willingness to be an honest person. This not only affects Saloris, but also the rest of his siblings for they have to fulfill a role of loyalty and surrender to their family, even when they are exposed to undesirable acts.
Moreover, “Barn Burning” work as an example of the disintegration of family throughout our history.
Family is supposed to be the foundation of values and guidelines for us to suit in society, but as time goes by we see the decrease of the accurate purpose of this affiliation. Nowadays, family is one of the main causes of the issues in society. Individuals behave just as they have been taught to and act with the values they have learned. Crimes among us encouraged by feelings like hatred, anger, or sadness are usually result of a bad foundation. However, this could be a relative problem, in where culture proposes a model of family. As an example, family in Asia can have a different perspective than family in America of how it should be consisted of. Nonetheless, they all lead to the same responsibility of guiding each individual along their lives to be the person they need to be for this
society.