Jon Lewallen Ms. Allen ENG 113-02 October 10, 2013 Betrayal and Loyalty in Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” In William Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning”, there are many examples of conflict that come up involving very common father-son issues. Faulkner incorporates real life conflicts into his that people in today’s society can relate to. Young Sarty and his father Abner are faced with life changing decisions that have life changing consequences. Sarty has to choose between doing what he knows is the right thing or staying faithful to his own father. Abner himself is also faced with a tough decision, keep being oppressed by the people controlling him and his family or doing something about it even if what he is doing wrong.
Colonel Sartoris, better known as Sarty, is raised in a sharecropping family. Growing up as a son of a sharecropper, Sarty does not receive proper education as well as proper manners. Moreover, by possessing a father who lack moral standards, he is revealed to the dark characteristics of life, such as revenge, grudge, hatred, and dishonesty. His father raises him to “stick to your [his] own blood” (Faulkner 8), which prohibits him from rendering reasonable choices. However, Sarty develops a sense of righteousness as he witnesses the effect of those dark characteristics of life, and is “torn between the conflicting loyalties, to his blood on the one side and to his sense of justice and righteousness on the other side” (Skei 218).
Barn Burning A father figure is commonly known for his compassion and wishes to have the best for his family’s interest. However, this is not what happens in “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner. Faulkner’s character Abner Snopes in “Barn Burning” demonstrates how society can tolerate the “blaming the world for one’s wrong actions.” Abner Snopes commits crimes usually with fire in order to cause damage against his employers, he works for in a cruel game of complete lack of respect. In the story Barn Burning, Abner Snopes is a very complex and interesting character. The story focuses on the shock of Abner’s behavior towards his ten-year-old son, Sartoris.
Just a Simple Outsider The novel “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck takes its’ setting in the 1930’s during The Grwat Depression. In this novel there’s two main characters Lennie and Geroge. These two men are on their journey to accomplish their dream but, they stumble on their way to achieve it. Lennie is mentally disabled and does as George tells him to. George is the dominant male in the relationship , because of Lennie’s disability it causes they both very much trouble back in Weed and on the ranch they arrive too after escaping.
The second part of the paper deals with the comparison. Topdog/Underdog talks about the adult lives of two African-American brothers, Lincoln and Booth who were abandoned by their parents. They have to deal with various issues ranging from work to racism. Booth, the younger brother, admires his brother and is even jealous of him. Lincoln used to be a hustler, but then he turned into a circus attraction where he sits dressed as Abraham Lincoln.
Crooks, named for his crooked back, is one of the most vulnerable characters on the ranch, mostly due to his race combined with general racist attitudes at the time. He lives by himself because he is the only black man on the ranch, and he has been so beaten down by loneliness and prejudicial treatment of that he is now suspicious of any kindness he receives. Crooks is painfully aware that his skin color is all that keeps him separate in this culture. This outsider status causes him to lament his loneliness, but he also delights in seeing the loneliness of others, perhaps because misery loves company. When Lennie arrives at his room, he turns him away, hoping to prove a point that if he, as a black man, is not allowed in white men’s houses, then whites are not allowed in his, but his desire for company ultimately wins out and he invites Lennie to sit with him.
Both stories show a dysfunctional father-son relationship where the son is abused by the alcoholic father. The poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke, is about the ongoing issue of a father physically abusing his young son. Many specific details throughout the poem support this idea. The father in this poem is a violent alcoholic. It is a common and ongoing problem in their household.
Living appears to be a luxury for these poor workers; their American dream is deformed. To make the capitalist society into a competitive and ruthless Darwinism jungle, the most often used metaphor in The Jungle is animal. Sinclair parallels the workers with weak creatures or rough beasts to dehumanize them and make the readers treat them with extra sympathy. "… … he [Jurgis] lived like a dumb beast of burden, knowing only the moment in which he was"(140). "Then Jurgis fought like a wild beast … …"(202).
Crooks, a black stable-hand, is segregated because of the pigment of his skin. Steinbeck depicts discrimination through Crooks’ isolation from other men, his desire for friendship, and his way of turning his vulnerability into a weapon. First, Steinbeck demonstrates Crooks’ loneliness through his separation from the other men on the ranch. Initially, the other ranch hands discriminate Crooks because of his disability that sets him apart from them. Steinbeck describes Crooks’ living condition to be, “For being alone…Crooks could leave his things about, and being a stable buck and a cripple, he was more permanent than the other men” (67).
It also represents the family as a tribal force which is fiercely possessive of its material concerns, hence the childrens ressitance later to Margaret as a future wife for Henry. The Wilcoxes as Forster’s portrayal of the corporate patriarchy show from the onset that their values will overall affect society. The illustration of this is in concern with Leonard, a man steeped in self allusion who wants nothing more than to fulfil his aspiration of the corporate male. Yet he is cut off and shown the least care in the world “we are not concerned with the poor”. This shows the ultimate obstruction between the classes so clear in Howards