Barn Burning

Barn Burning

If we evaluate William Faulkner's two short stories, 'A Rose for Emily' and 'Barn Burning', he structures the plots of these two stories in a different way. However, both of the stories remind the effect of a fathers teaching, and in both the short stories the protagonists Miss Emily and Sarty make their own decisions about their lives, even though there fathers have left a huge impact on their lives, still they take the decisions as they are pleased and want to carry on their lives making the decisions themselves. The stories present major idea through descriptions that includes strong metaphorical meaning. Both stories include thinking of life and making decisions.

In ‘Barn Burning,’ Sarty who is about ten finds himself in the situation of being expected to lie to protect his father from punishment for burning the neighbor’s barn. Sarty’s character in “Barn Burning” is a study of the objective and spiritual relationships between a father and son that are born out in the reality of truth versus lies as shown in Sarty’s Personal honesty. Sarty knows that his father is wrong when he burns barns, but his father constantly reminds his son of the importance of family blood, and of the responsibilities that being part of a family means. He tells Sarty, “You got to learn to stick to your own people’s blood or you are not going to have any blood to stick to you.” In other words, if you are not completely loyal to your own family, no matter if the family is right or wrong, then you will have no place to turn when you need help. At the end of the story, this is Sarty’s dilemma—he has no place to go and no one to turn when he needs help. He changes himself because he feels that if he carries on his life this way, he will ruin his life, and decides he should move ahead in life. Sarty early in the story respects his father but later decides to change himself.

A Rose for Emily tells a story of a young woman who is violated...

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  • Category: English
  • Words: 601
  • Pages: 3

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