William Faulkner’s, “Barn Burning,” illustrates the clash of socio-economic classes and the different ways people choose to respond to both oppression and adversity. I believe that although social economic injustice is a prominent factor, internalized racial superiority, and difficulties with moral integrity ultimately affect the way the antagonist of this story is displayed as such a negative character. The short story entails the journey of sharecropper Abner Snopes and his youngest son Sartoris Snopes. The two begin to come into conflict when a series of unlikely events continue to happen. Abner Snopes has taken it upon himself to burn places that aren’t rightfully his. In the first incident, nothing was proven and the family skips town
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de Spain’s expensive white carpet there’s no sign of regret. Instead he ends up experiencing bigotry in an encounter with Mr. de Spain himself. In regards of the carpet on Faulkner page 16 Mr. de Spain tells Abner in front of his sons, “It cost a hundred dollars. But you never had a hundred dollars. You never will.” Mr. de Spain was well aware of his financial success and was not afraid to throw it in anyones face even if it happened to be someone of his same race. Here’s a white man same as him treating him as though they weren’t equal. Historically the white man was usually in power with wealth by his side, but in this case things were different. Abner was just this sharecropper that aside from being a working man has never seen and maybe never will see such a large amount of money. This just so happens to be the key factor on why Abner chooses to burn the barn. He couldn’t catch a break no matter how hard her tried resulting in such an acrid character …show more content…
Abner had the responsibility as the family’s leader to keep the family positive and working. When Abner was giving orders to the whole family, every single one of them was aware of his plans to burn the de Spain’s barn. For the most part they obliged to every one of his orders, making no real attempt to actually stop what he was about to do. This part of the story goes to show that the members of the family were deeply affected by the way Abner had ran things around the household up until that
de Spain’s expensive white carpet there’s no sign of regret. Instead he ends up experiencing bigotry in an encounter with Mr. de Spain himself. In regards of the carpet on Faulkner page 16 Mr. de Spain tells Abner in front of his sons, “It cost a hundred dollars. But you never had a hundred dollars. You never will.” Mr. de Spain was well aware of his financial success and was not afraid to throw it in anyones face even if it happened to be someone of his same race. Here’s a white man same as him treating him as though they weren’t equal. Historically the white man was usually in power with wealth by his side, but in this case things were different. Abner was just this sharecropper that aside from being a working man has never seen and maybe never will see such a large amount of money. This just so happens to be the key factor on why Abner chooses to burn the barn. He couldn’t catch a break no matter how hard her tried resulting in such an acrid character …show more content…
Abner had the responsibility as the family’s leader to keep the family positive and working. When Abner was giving orders to the whole family, every single one of them was aware of his plans to burn the de Spain’s barn. For the most part they obliged to every one of his orders, making no real attempt to actually stop what he was about to do. This part of the story goes to show that the members of the family were deeply affected by the way Abner had ran things around the household up until that