Faulkner's allusions to Abner being a tragic figure are not one hundred percent obvious in the first reading of "Barn Burning." Though it takes the reader more than a quick glance to make the connections, the connections are still present in the text. The most prominent one, after a few read-throughs, is the fact that Abner was shot in the heel when he was stealing horses. This ties into the story of Achilles, whose only weak spot was his heel. There are more connections between Abner and Achilles than just the location of their only injury. Abner was stealing horses from whom the reader can only assume to be the more upper-class, land-owning members of society. Achilles had stolen (figuratively) the wife of a neighboring kingdom's king. Both were shot--Achilles by arrow, Abner by bullet--in their attempts to get out clean from the situation.
Abner is not only a tragic figure, but the whole premise of "Barn Burning" follows several elements of the tragic format of Greek playwrights. The element that stands out the most is that Abner continually makes the mistake of burning the barns, which causes his family to leave town and start over completely new someplace else, but he never seems to learn anything from his pyromaniac tendencies. This could be explained by saying that he enjoys burning barns and uprooting his family month after month, or it could be that he is continually falling into a trap set by fate. Some smart historian-type man somewhere in the world once said, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Abner does not learn from his past, thus plunging him into a cycle of burning and relocating that could seem to be set down by the Fates themselves.
-Sarah Meirose
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