Introduction
“Barn burning” is a short story that was written by William Faulkner who was an American writer. The main theme of this story is conflict. This theme can be clearly seen in the way the main characters in the story interact with each other. This paper is going to give a critique of the characters in this story. The main characters that are going to be considered are Colonel Sartoris Snopes, Abner Snopes and Lennie Snopes.
Critique of the main characters
Colonel Sartoris Snopes
This is a boy who is ten years of age and the protagonist in the story. In the world of Sartoris, violence is a basic feature of manhood and this is a thing he comes to know from staying with his father. He is easily influenced, speechless and is subjected to the possibly corrupting influence that his father has. But on the other hand, a sense of justice is well instilled in him.
Sartoris is given feelings of joyfulness and peace, that came unconsciously, by the view of the de Spain house, but, as the author points out, Sartoris being a young boy could not be able to carry out the conversion of such responses in to words. Later on, he once again reacts in an instinctive manner at the time he engages in stopping his father from setting the barn of de Spain on fire. He can not clearly speak out his cause for cautioning de Spain or at the end fleeing, but the actions he engages in give out a suggestion that at heart he has decency and morality and not the dishonesty which his father makes an effort to introduce in him.
The way Sartoris looks at the world and morals may be further than the adult world of accurate language and expression, but he exhibits insight that has undergone much more expansion as compared to that of the adult people that are close to him. He gets over his father’s efforts to influence him in which he sticks him to the significance of the family loyalty as a way of ensuring Sartoris’ silence.
Sartorius’ brother, John, does not have an insight that Sartoris has and he serves as an illustration of what Sartorius as a young boy could easily have turned out to be. Their father, Snopes, has achieved success in teaching John the notions of family loyalty that he had, and the result is that John, without second thought, follows the father’s criminal direction.
Eventually, Sartoris serves as a betrayer to the family honor and must keep at it as an individual. Earlier on, his father had given out a warning that if Sartoris could not support his own family, then he would not obtain any support from the family. However, despite the fact that Sartoris’ future looked bleak due to lack of support from the family, he made up his mind that he did not need the kind of support that the family would offer him. Sartoris’ running away is an apparent sign of coming to an end of the inheritance of resentment and disgrace that he was supposed to obtain.
Abner Snopes
Abner Snopes is Sartoris’ father. In the eyes of Sartoris, he is a powerful and immense presence but in the actual sense he is just a primitive, careless force of cruelty and destruction. Snopes is rigid, with no profundity, feeling or complexity. The rigidness he has makes him look like he is less than human. Reflection is given by his physical presence in full terms of the internal corruption and adoration of revenge that he represents. His limb that had been shot at the time he was stealing is dragged in a lame manner behind him. This can be considered to be an outer representation of his inner life that is warped.
Since Snopes is completely not able to express himself in an intelligent or a clear manner, the only remaining tools he uses to express himself is cruelty and violence against other people. These tools that he uses have overtaken the way he views the world entirely to a level that they have affected the sense of the true self.
Snopes’ desire for revenge results from his feelings of inferiority and deficiency in power. He makes up for these limitations by turning out to be a silent oppressor, controlling his family by issuing out threats and assurance of violence, and also by damaging the livelihood of the people he thinks have considered him as insignificant.
Lennie Snopes
Lennie is Abner Snopes’ wife and the mother of Sartoris. This character is a representation of the opposite of Snopes and she stands for morality in this family. She makes sharp the conflict which Sartoris comes across as he makes efforts to build up his own principles about what is wrong and what is right.
Lennie’s character has been made notable by the fact that she has not basically submitted to her husband who is an authoritarian and violent person. Lennie’s spirit has been injured by the continuous poverty, lack of roots, and a life dominated by crime which the husband has exposed his family to. More so, Lennie has tolerated physical violence all through her life in marriage. Yet, her spirit has not been entirely destroyed. This can be illustrated by the way she influences her son, Sartoris. Even if she is pushed to stay in a position of inferiority and quietness within the family, she has been able to infuse the values she has in to her son, Sartoris, even if there are overpowering, corrupting pressures her husband makes attempts to put in force. Even if eventually Lennie is left behind by Sartoris, he goes because she has made it clearly known to him in a quiet manner that it is right to undertake such a move.
Conclusion
The theme dominating in the story is conflict and this is indicated by the way the characters interact. Conflict is brought in by Abner Snopes through making attempts to bring unfair control in the family and to other people.