Faulkner's "Barn Burning": Character, Class, and Modernism
This paper analyzes William Faulkner's short story "Barn Burning" through a series of interpretive questions addressing character motivation, social context, and literary technique. It examines why Abner Snopes burns barns as acts of class rage, how his sharecropper status shapes his contempt for property and authority, and what his son Sarty's moral dilemma reveals about loyalty and conscience. The paper also considers whether Snopes is evil or a product of a corrupt post-Civil War social system, how the ambiguous ending functions narratively, and what Modernist techniques — including filtered consciousness and indeterminate plotting — Faulkner employs to tell this story of systemic inequality and destructive nihilism.
- Sarty's Fear and Abner's Escape from Punishment: Sarty as eyewitness; Abner escapes arson charge
- Sharecropper Rage and the Weapon of Fire: Snopes's class rage directed at property and land
- Defiance of Authority and the Snopes Family Dynamic: Snopes treats family as property, defies authority
- Abner Snopes: Evil, Disturbed, or Product of His Environment?: Snopes as symbol of post-Civil War poor white south
- Disregard for Property as a Form of Protest: Carpet episode as class-based contempt for property
- The Ambiguous Ending and Sarty's Choice: Sarty warns de Spain; ambiguous fate of Snopes
- Modernist Techniques and Faulkner's Ambivalent Admiration: Modernist form, ambiguity, and Snopes's dark dignity
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What makes this paper effective
- Each answer moves beyond plot summary to offer interpretive analysis — connecting character behavior to historical and economic context (e.g., linking Snopes's arson to post-Civil War sharecropper poverty).
- The paper draws productive comparisons, such as invoking the Boston Tea Party to frame Snopes as a revolutionary agitator, which elevates the discussion from character study to social commentary.
- The writing maintains analytical honesty, acknowledging moral ambiguity rather than reducing Snopes to a simple villain or victim.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates contextualized character analysis: it reads individual behavior (rage, arson, defiance) through the lens of structural conditions (sharecropping, racial hierarchy, post-war poverty). This approach — anchoring psychology in socioeconomic history — is a hallmark of literary criticism at the undergraduate level.
Structure breakdown
The paper is organized as a numbered Q&A, with each section addressing a discrete interpretive question about "Barn Burning." This structure mirrors a guided close-reading exercise. Sections move from plot-level questions (why is Sarty afraid?) through character motivation and social context, to literary form (Modernism) and theme (inequality and nihilism), creating a natural escalation in analytical depth.
Sarty's Fear and Abner's Escape from Punishment
At the beginning of "Barn Burning", Abner Snopes is being tried for the burning of a barn that belongs to the man on whose land he works as a sharecropper. His son Sarty is afraid because he is the lone eyewitness who could potentially testify against his father. In some sense, Sarty's fear itself signals to the court that Abner did commit the arson. However, without direct incrimination, Abner is able to escape punishment for the felony of arson and is merely ordered to leave the county.
Sharecropper Rage and the Weapon of Fire
Snopes's rage seems to relate directly to his status as a sharecropper: a man who owns no land or property, but who is permitted to exist — almost in conditions of feudal serfdom — on land owned by wealthy men like Major de Spain. The economic condition of a sharecropper is little better than that of a slave, and Snopes seems to know it. His aggressive racism is meant to assert his own value by reminding people that, however he may live, he is still white. His anger is therefore directed toward property itself. Fire has the effect of making a building owned by someone else vanish entirely — it deprives the owner of landed property in the most absolute way possible.
Defiance of Authority and the Snopes Family Dynamic
Snopes feels disenfranchised by his lot in life as a poor white sharecropper, and thus asserts his own sense of dignity and agency through a belligerent and defiant attitude toward authority and propriety in general. He regards his family as essentially his property — which allows him to practically beat Sarty while simultaneously preaching the necessity of close family bonds. There is no contradiction in his mind between these two behaviors.
Abner Snopes: Evil, Disturbed, or Product of His Environment?
Abner Snopes is the product of his environment: a system of racist slavery that had only been partially reformed after a devastating war. Whether he is evil or disturbed, Faulkner intends us to understand him as representative of the poor white population of the post-Civil War South — people who were destitute and recently deprived of the ability to at least consider themselves a step above the black population. The stigmatizing term "poor white trash" is often applied to characters like Abner Snopes, and while he may be evil, or at the very least not good, he can be understood as the product of a deeply problematic social system.
His landowner is, after all, a military Major and thus a representative of the Old South aristocracy that started, and lost, the Civil War. Historically speaking, Snopes's poverty was caused by Confederate military types like Major de Spain. In this light, one might recall that the Boston Tea Party — an act of vandalism against property — helped ignite the American Revolution. Snopes is meant to be understood as a kind of revolutionary agitator, a man whose destructive impulses are a distorted response to genuine injustice.
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