Abner Snopes is the patriarchal figure of the Snopes family in the short story Barn Burning by William Faulkner. Abner is an influential, towering presence in his son Sartoris’s eyes, but he himself is simply a seemingly primitive, thoughtless force of violence and destruction. Now throughout the story Faulkner characterizes Abner with metallic terms describing him as “iron like” and “cut from tin” to underscore his complete lack of humanity and comprised sense of ethics. Faulkner also uses fire a symbol to allow us to explore the warped mind of Abner Snopes. Faulkner portrays Abner and the Snopes family as victims of a society that has unrightfully robbed them of all their power and voice. And Abner forces that power away from the tyrannical landowners who for all intents and purposes own him and his family, and back into his hand with the pernicious majesty of flame. But on the other hand fire is also used to demonstrate how Abner is completely incapable of caring for his family. This aspect of his personality is portrayed by when he makes the small fire in an attempt to provide his family with essential warmth. This shows that Abner is complelty incapable of making a fire for any reason other than expressing his abhorrence toward a society, which consummately juxtaposes his pyromaniacal nature. The final element that Falkner uses to define Abner is with his leg, which was shot in the Civil War when he was stealing Confederate horses for profit, sags lamely behind him, and is an external manifestation of his twisted logic. With this tiny bit of symbolism Faulkner perfectly uses Abner’s physical presence to reflect the inner corruption and infatuation with revenge that he embodies.
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