Abner's Fiery Desire for Power

Abner Snopes is a pivotal and dynamic character to the story “Barn Burning.” He is a poor sharecropper, unable to care for his family. He has no power in society and cannot even provide adequate meals for his family. Faulkner uses fire to not only represent Abner's lack of power, but also his inadequacy and his inability to care for his family. The Snopes family often goes hungry because Abner is unable to provide for them. While heading to the de Spain's residence, the family stops in the woods. Abner attempts to construct a fire. However, it is a small fire, unable to provide warmth for the family. This represents Abner's inability to help his family. He is unable to create a basic fire for warmth during the night, a symbol of his lacking personality and inability to provide for his loved ones.

Abner's poverty and status of servitude instills a deep feeling of inadequacy and a sense of being powerless. Abner must attempt to satiate this lack of power with destructive acts that put him into control. These acts are heartless acts of arson, meant to be a type of rebellion against those who are above Abner in society. Abner, throughout the course of the story, burns two barns. This is his way of trying to obtain power. No one is able to prevent him from committing arson and large chases are brought against him to capture Abner after the deed. When he successfully escapes, Abner develops a sense of control and power because the wealthy landowners are unable to stop his destruction. This satisfies Abner's feelings of inadequacy while also granting him a sense of control over his life and those around him.

Barn Burning;

Faulkner relies on the use of parallels to bring a contradiction of character versus arising action, illuminating the differences between Abner’s questionable personality and the liveliness of fire. From the beginning of the story, the cold and serious personality of Abner comes to light through the carelessness he shows for other people’s belongings and particularly the arson that he commits on a landowner’s barn. Unlike the fire Abner unleashes on those more “powerful” than he, he is tin-like and stiff and treats his family with borderline emotionless standards of authority and control. Compared to fire, which is ravaging and despite destructive, very vivid and bountiful with life despite its tendencies. For a man of such bitterness and calculative personality, using fire as an escape from the oppressing condescension of landowners shows an underlying layer of intensity between Abner and his habit of burning barns.

Through Sartoris, the reader is able to obtain the glimpses of further comparison.

Abner is impassive towards his daughters and shows only the slightest concern for Sarty when it comes to lying or protecting the family dignity - which according to Abner is the only thing that he should protect whether through lying or not.

Abner’s actions of wiping his feet on the expensive rug show his disdain for anyone that views themselves as his superior but also as a way to show himself wiping away his own problems onto those deem themselves higher than he. By burning down their barns he is able to establish a level ground between himself and whomever he is sharecropping with at the time and exposing the hostilities that Abner has towards those with more than himself.

Like clockwork.

Everything about this story has a repetitious almost rhythmic feel about it. When Sartoris begins to describe his father, he describes him as “harshly cut form tin”. This makes him seem more like a robot than like that of a man. Importantly, at the beginning of the story a clock is mentioned that is taken with them everywhere that they go even though it does not work. The story makes allusions to Abner being just like that clock. Several times Abner is described with the term cold; this is often used to describe someone that is emotionless, unforgiving, or lacking compassion. Abner is related to time itself in that situation, in the sense that he, like time, is unforgiving and uncompassionate. Abner’s hurt foot is like the clock’s inability to tick. Both of these are important wounds to their respective bearers. These wounds are representations of their owner’s inability to progress; the clock cannot move forward to tell time, while Abner’s foot is a symbol of his inability to run from his problems and his inability to move forward. The hurt foot is also a link to his past. As a confederate “soldier” he was shot in the heel after stealing a horse. With his hurt foot he cannot escape this past and will forever be unable to move on from the time before the end of the civil war. In the end his deficiency was the end of him, he was unable to adapt so he was decommissioned.

His deficiencies play into his hatred for the upper-class, as he cannot move forward and he sees them as enemies. He is stuck as a minute-hand on a clock, forever stuck in a past time amidst a time that no longer has a place for the likes of him.

Dirty Abner!

In this story, Abner is portrayed as an inhumane “object”. Descriptions, such as “ironlike”, “cut ruthlessly from tin”, “hand like a curled claw” help portray his physical appearances which classifies him as inhumane. These descriptions hint how harsh and odd Abner is when it comes to his life and family members. For example, Sarty, around 10 years old, is repeatedly smacked by his father, an act of harshness. The author also implies that he abuses his wife and other family members, and all of these implications help form the image of the inhumane father. Throughout the story, the actions he commits are ruthless, and emotionless. All of these ideas are tied in together by the author to establish him as a cruel, inhumane animal.

The author also makes use of diction to represent Abner as somewhat educated person who is willing to manipulate people for his own benefit. When he tells Sarty to “stick to your own blood”, the author portrays his selfishness and manipulative habits. Even though he has committed arson, he is warning his son to not spill his secrets. His diction also represents his heartless features. Just the way he speaks with his wife inspires fear into her heart and the other family members. No one dares to defy him because of the threat implied in his voice. Even though he responds in a cool and composed manner, his diction implies danger and harm.

A major symbol in this story is the destruction of property by Abner (barn burning and rug destruction). These actions symbolize Abner’s hatred for the class system that was basically established. Being a confederate, Abner firmly believed that he was worth more than a black person, and he wishes to establish that fact by causing harm to the rich class’s properties. Even though he is considered a slave, he establishes the fact that his mind and actions cannot be restrained and controlled. Thus, the destruction of their property is an act of rebellion to establish his authority and exercise his free will.

Barn Burning

William Faulkner uses arson to portray the internal conflict for control that Abner is experiencing throughout "Barn Burning." Abner burns the barns belonging to the more upper-class members of the society in which he lives; put into historical context, the upper-class is the landowners and the middle- to lower-class is the sharecroppers. The landowners generally treat the sharecroppers as though they were their slaves, and this seems to strike a nerve with Abner. For the most part, he burns their barns to prove a point--the point being that even though they control his body and his work, they do not control his free will. That is the same reason why the slaves would sing in the fields while they worked, to prove to their owners that they still had their free will despite being treated like their property.

Abner also burns barns because he wants to feel something for once. Though the story flows as though it is told from Sarty's point of view, the reader does get the impression that Abner uses physical abuse to keep his wife and children from doing things he does not want them to do. The language used in the telling of the story also indicates that Abner is generally a cold, unfeeling person around his family. Burning the barns of his oppressors might be the only way he can feel any sort of emotion, whether it is fear, joy, or the pure rush of adrenaline that comes from knowing he could get caught and killed for what he is doing. The one element that bears a striking contrast to Abner's lust for control is the fact that fire is so uncontrollable. Perhaps knowing that he is the creator of this fire is his way of asserting control.

-Sarah Meirose.

PS: Exactly 295 words = winning.

Oh Young Sarty

Colonel Sartoris is Abner Snopes ten-year-old son. The boy is described early on in the story as a “wiry, gray eyed” boy with “faded jeans.” Sarty is on the verge of becoming a young man and struggles to find his own personal moral stand on life throughout the story. It is evident that Sarty believes in the laws of soviety and wants to do good rather than wrong, but his father’s influence weighs heavily upon him as the “family’s loyalty” is superior to anything else in the world.

Faulkner describes Sarty as though the boy was ill. He uses the words “grief,” “despair,” and “fear.” Sartoris knows something is not right about his life. He knows his family does not function in accordance with the rest of society. Throughout the story, Sarty craves a different life, a peaceful life that does not seem so backwards. His father puts an immense amount of pressure on the boy to keep quiet about his arsonist activities. Sartoris defends his father in the beginning of the story; however, as the plot progresses, the boy tires of the life he has been forced to live and decides that “family loyalty” is not as important as his personal self conscious and its distinction between right and wrong.

The author does an excellent job of describing Sartoris’ thought process as he goes into great depth when establishing the character. Sarty’s mixed emotions demonstrate his struggles. The solemn feeling of calm as he passes the de Spain’s house indicates the boys longing for home stability and peace. Sartoris finds a peace at the conclusion of the story, but not a perfect peace like the one he felt at the de Spain house. The boy never loses his grief but he does break free from the fear of his father and the instability of his household. Sarty “…did not look back” after running away from his old life, and the peace he feels at the end is the promise of a new one.

"Barn Burning"

In “Barn Burning” it seems as if the story is written from the point of view of Sarty. Abner is usually spoken about from the back and Sarty always references him from behind or his back which may symbolize that he is an unfriendly character. Abner raises his voice a lot and puts a lot of pressure on his son Sarty, because they seem to be very similar. Sarty never wants to do what his father says, but he does not exactly have a choice since he lives with him. I also got from this story that Abner may have abused his wife and children, being a very rude character.

The main plot in this story however, is the fact that Abner burns barns and we are never really given a reason as to why. He may be jealous of the people who he is doing it to, or maybe he’s just getting revenge on past experiences in his life that really ticked him off. The first barn he burned, he sent a slave to the owner with a warning that wood and hay can burn, but the owner did not understand and just ignored it. That night his barn burned to the ground and he was livid. At one point, Abner destroyed a rug while pretending to clean it and got in some trouble. He was going to burn another barn in response to this, but he got shot before he could. Sarty cried but probably felt a huge surge of relief.

- Megan Burch

"Barren Woman," by Sylvia Plath

I'm excited to be apprenticing myself to writers I admire along with my AP Lit class who are doing the same. I know I've already learned so much just from working diligently on a new poem, talking to wonderful poet Sandra Beasley, and studying Plath's poem "Barren Woman" from Ariel.

Yesterday, Sandra was talking about titles and times when a title might do too much or not enough. She also discussed using a title to frame a piece and let the reader know how to understand it. I was not sure if there is a good way to know if then there is the potential for the title to be working too hard in the piece until I read "Barren Woman."

The text of the poem is an extended metaphor in which the speaker describes herself as an empty museum, courtyard. In the second stanza, she alludes to the births of Nike and Apollo, and to the goddess Diana, the moon. The poem, without the title, works. (obviously, this is Sylvia Plath after all) She has several elements unifying the poem--the whiteness of the lilies and of the moon, the capacity to be full--the crowded museum and the "great public."

Instead, none of those things happen. The museum is empty, the courtyard still. The only activity is from the inanimate water in the inanimate fountain; the lilies, which should live, are "marble" and defined by pallor and heavy smell, reminiscent of death of a funeral.

The line I really don't understand is mid-way through the second stanza:

"Instead, the dead injure me with attentions, and nothing can happen."

It's clearly a turning point, but the bit about the dead is unclear to me and "nothing can happen" seems to be a throw-away line. (forgive me Sylvia) Clearly, though, it can't be; I need to solve the mystery.

Back to the point about the title. The poem is a beautiful, complete experience. I think even without the title, the reader would get some hints of incompletion or barrenness with the imagery of the empty spaces and the moon, which is both virginal and barren. However the metaphor becomes much more powerful when the reader knows that Plath is applying it to an ordinary woman. There is too much ambiguity in the poem without the title for her full meaning to be clear, but it all becomes sharply focused when the reader views it through the lens of her title.

I think I'd like to try this idea out. Write an extended metaphor as a poem and then give it a title that is the other half of the metaphor. I'll report back on how this works!

“…it is central to the rest of this course that you fully understand the difference between a sophist and a philosopher. [Sophists are] self-opinionated know-it-alls who are satisfied with what little they know, or who boast of knowing a whole lot about subjects they haven’t the faintest notion of. […] A real philosopher…knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. […] A philosopher is therefore someone who recognizes that there is still a lot he does not understand, and is troubled by it. In that sense, he is still wiser than all those who brag about their knowledge of things they know nothing about. […] Socrates himself said, “One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.” […]
The most subversive people are those who ask questions.
Giving answers is not nearly as threatening.
Any one question can be more explosive than a thousand answers.”

~ Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World ~

First Assignments In - Let the Blogging Begin!

Dear 2010-11 APers,

Thanks for being so prompt in turning in your essays. I'm very much looking forward to reading them and getting to know each of you a little better. If you would please click the "Follow" button on this blog, you should be able to see a notification on your blog that I have updated mine. I plan to use my blog for my own writing and reflections over the summer, and I encourage you to do the same. Also, I have linked each of your blogs to mine so that I can see them easily. Feel free to link your classmates' blogs to your own; I hope that these blogs will help us build a sense of community, even over the summer, and we will use them for feedback in writing, among other things, once the year begins.
Last semester I created a Facebook fan page for my English class (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Ms-Smiths-English-Class/289798125778). If you have a Facebook account, go ahead and be a fan of my class; I use it as a sort-of homework hotline / bulletin board for the class, and it's also an easy way to ask a question or send a message, though I suppose email does that pretty well too.

Have a glorious summer and I hope you enjoy your reading and writing!