Class, Desire, and Identity in Joyce, Faulkner, and Cather

Introduction: Class and Coming of Age

The search for higher social status as a form of personal fulfillment and self-definition marks the coming-of-age stories of James Joyce, William Faulkner, and Willa Cather, despite the distinct differences between the three male protagonists in their seminal short stories Araby, Barn Burning, and Paul's Case. All three stories feature a young protagonist whose illusions of finery and higher class status are shattered. Because these aspirations are also often connected to sexual desires, this fall from grace is particularly difficult for the young men to tolerate.

Illusion and Disillusionment in Joyce's "Araby"

In Joyce's "Araby", the young male protagonist becomes enamored with a young woman who seems innocent, above his own class, and charming. When she expresses a wish to visit the Araby bazaar but cannot because she must attend a convent retreat, the narrator decides to go on her behalf. However, Araby itself does not live up to the promise of his dreams: it contains a stall staffed by women with English accents, and its general atmosphere is crass rather than alluring. The boy's desire to go to Araby — and by extension his desire for the young woman — quickly fizzles:

"I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real... Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger" (Joyce).

Honor, Shame, and Class in Faulkner's "Barn Burning"

Youthful idealism and sexual desire are quickly extinguished. The boy also seems upset that he could be so readily taken in by the appearance of beauty and class, which is really cheap and tattered beneath the surface — both in Araby itself and in the young woman he admired.

In "Barn Burning" by William Faulkner, a young narrator is similarly ashamed of his lower-class background. His father, Abner Snopes, possesses a fierce but distorted sense of honor that once drove him to burn down the barn of a man he believed had wronged him. When Abner seeks to take similar revenge against Major de Spain, the man for whom he works as a sharecropper, his son Sarty warns the Major and ultimately decides to flee and build a new life for himself. Sarty wishes to forge an identity no longer allied with his father's. For all of Abner's airs, Sarty is repulsed by what he sees as his father's absence of genuine ethics. Yet even after fleeing, Sarty remains desperate to believe his father had some honor and cut a romantic figure:

"My father, he thought. 'He was brave!' he cried suddenly… 'He was in the war! He was in Colonel Sartoris' cav'ry!' not knowing that his father had gone to that war a private in the fine old European sense, wearing no uniform, admitting the authority of and giving fidelity to no man or army or flag, going to war as Malbrouck himself did: for booty — it meant nothing and less than nothing to him if it were enemy booty or his own" (Faulkner).

Conclusion: Status, Desire, and Self-Definition

All three young men are at a crossroads, still defining their identities. For Joyce's protagonist, his desire for the young woman and his aspirations for a more elevated lifestyle are simultaneously raised and dashed upon realizing that the fantasy he had constructed is no different from the cheap reality surrounding him. For Sarty in Barn Burning, breaking with his father is essential to becoming the person he wishes to be, and he is even willing to betray his father to do so. For Paul, whose sexuality remains confused, emulating a different lifestyle briefly becomes an outlet until reality intrudes with fatal consequences.