Literary Criticism of Barn Burning
Bibliography: Bertonneau, Thomas. "An Overview of Barn Burning." Short Stories for Students. N.p.: Gale Group, 1999. N. pag. Print.
Overall Thesis: Thomas Bertonneau states that Abner Snopes, in "Barn Burning" by William Faulkner acts as everyones double as if he imitates all of the people he comes in contact to during the story.
By: Quinn Stroube
Overall Thesis: Thomas Bertonneau states that Abner Snopes, in "Barn Burning" by William Faulkner acts as everyones double as if he imitates all of the people he comes in contact to during the story.
- Abner uses violence as one of the forms of imitation used throughout the book. When somebody has something that he wants, Abner uses violence to get something like it because of the jealousy that he feels towards those people.
- "Sarty sees Abner bring his stiff left foot squarely down in a pile of fresh droppings where a horse had stood in the drive and which his father could have avoided by a simple change of his stride. Abner now barges into the de Spain house, tracking manure on the rug". (Faulkner 34)
- Abner also attempts to get his son Sarty back him up on the story that he says to the court to get out of trouble, but Sarty wants to imitate his father by lying to the court even though he know it is wrong; he wants to be loyal to his family.
- "He aims for me to lie." (Faulkner 12)
By: Quinn Stroube
Literary Criticism of William Faulkner
Hal McDonald “Faulkner’s Barn Burning”
Explicator 61,no. 1 (fall 2002): Stratford Library Resources.46-8.
Thursday September 27, 2012
Overall Thesis: Hal McDonald argues in “Faulkner’s Barn Burning” that Sarty has an undisputed Southern dialect, although not perfect.
-Here Faulkner is speaking as a Southerner as he has a background in the dialect as he was born in Mississippi. He was also educated and wouldn’t make the mistakes that his characters would make in text.
-“Although Faulkner's depiction of regional dialect in his characters' speech is almost always right on target, it occasionally misses its mark.(1)”
- Here Faulkner adds the h to "it" in an unaccented position, where no native Southern speaker would actually pronounce it with the H.
-“"He aims for me to lie [...] and I will have to do hit,(1)"
By: Ben Johnson