Barn Burning Group

Question:


rokia
Teacher

What are the main reasons behind Mr Snopes' burning the barn of Mr Harris and De Spain?

"Barn Burning" by William Faulkner.

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Posted by rokia on Thursday December 18, 2008 at 2:01 AM and tagged with barn burning, characters, plot, snopes.

Answers:

  1. jefe64
    jefe64 Teacher
    High School - 11th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    Best answer as selected by question asker.

    Faulkner portrays Snopes as seething with barely contained resentment toward the seemingly benevolent Southern aristocrats who offer him work.  He is a poor, itinerant husband and father who seems bent on self-destruction and the sabotage of any opportunity for stability for his family.  Snopes' stiff walk, the result of an old injury, seems emblematic of the crippling anger he carries.  In short, the remnants of the old socio-economic system of the South--the plantation economy--continue to trap former slaves and poor whites alike in a de facto slave economy that produces psychological deformities like those in Snopes. Snopes' son, Sarty, through whom we experience the events in "Barn Burning" recognizes that he must run from his father's debilitating rage if he has any hope of breaking this miserable cycle of poverty and despair.

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    Posted by jefe64 on Thursday December 18, 2008 at 6:17 AM