Typical Tragedy Taking Time to Tell Tales

William Faulkner has created a story in Barn Burning that represents the classical tragedy style of the ancient times. It follows the scheme of evoking fear and then pity, a process called catharsis. You fear Abner while reading the story; he is intimidating, powerful, and dangerous. Faulkner's descriptions as being cold, dark, with iron like qualities feed even more into this fear we feel for him. His actions are uncontrollable, and his power makes him seem like an unstoppable force in this story. We also grow to dislike him because of the fear and because of his immoral actions. But by the end of the story when Abner is shot, the reader is obligated to pity Him, or at least his son. One feels bad for Abner because of how out of hand his life got and how unfortunate it is that he had his extreme resentment towards others. Sarty also gains some pity for he is forced to grow up and a mere age of 10 years old, forcing us to feel bad for his unfortunate family life and his unfair upbringing. He gains this pity from his embodiment of innocence; children always pull at the strings of our hearts. The story makes us think about what his life could have been and the cruelness of it all. ofThe transition from fear into pity in this story represents the classical tragedy quality of Catharsis.