Study Guide to
William Faulkner's "Barn Burning"
Allocate at least three readings to the story.
Arrange for your initial reading to be carried out at a single sitting. Your goal in this initial reading should be to
familiarize yourself with the basic facts of the story. As you do this, you should be looking for answers to the following
standard initial agenda of curiosity:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Who is the protagonist of the story?
What are the basic features of his situation or predicament?
What are the sources of tension / conflict in this story? Proceed on the assumption that there may be more than
one, and that they will probably be related to each other. For example, what internal conflicts does the
protagonist experience, and do these connect with conflicts between the protagonist and other characters?
Where would you locate the climax of the story? Is there more than one way open for deciding this?
What is the point of view from which the story is conveyed? Does the point of view shift in the course of the story?
Second reading
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
How would you account for the actions of the father -- having burned the first barn, the rug incident, and going to
burn the second barn? What is motivating the father to do these things?
Look carefully at the two court-session scenes. What is your reaction to the way the two judges act in the
respective trials? What standards prompt the first judge's question to the plaintiff at the end of the trial? What
standards prompt the plaintiff's decision? How do you feel about their commitment to these principles? How
would you assess the judge's decision in the second trial?
How would you account for the actions of the boy, especially as he seems ready to tell the truth about his father?
Examine the references to the boy's sisters in the story. How and why does Faulkner describe the sisters the way
he does?
Examine the places in the story where the boy's mother and aunt appear. How and why does Faulkner describe
these women the way he does?
Additionally in your Second Reading, focus on Sarty. What is the story inviting us to notice about him? What
should be our feelings about what he undergoes, what he does, and what the impact of this will be upon him?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
How would you describe the conflict he is experiencing?
What are the different values to which he seems to be committed? How are these values embodied?
Examine the boy’s “interior monologues,” the italicized parts of the story. What do these tell us about the boy,
about others?
What is it about his father that strikes him as admirable, worthy of respect? How do you figure these events have
registered with Sarty?
After Sarty runs away at the sound of the shots, is there any indication how Sarty will turn out? Will this now
virtual orphan end up soundly on his psychological and ethical feet? Or will he be demoralized and destroyed by
the trauma of what he has brought about? (Consider the conclusion of ¶28.)
Keep track in the margins of your text of the places where the narration shifts into what we would understand as
the language of his own thoughts.
Third Reading
This time try something that may be difficult. See if you can find in the story a basis, indirectly conveyed, for
understanding Abner Snopes in a sympathetic light. This is difficult for several reasons:
This story is written almost exclusively from Sarty's point of view, even though (as you will have noticed in your
second reading) the narrator indicates Sarty's experience from a conceptual vantage point that transcends Sarty's
own conceptual repertoire, and even though the narrator occasionally acquaints us with facts that we are told Sarty
has never heard of. We are clearly meant to sympathize with what Sarty is undergoing and with the decision he makes
at the end, and this decision is not only counter to his father's will, but seems to result in the latter's death.
The narrator paints Abner Snopes' appearance and impact upon his family in an apparently unsympathetic light. His
motivation is left entirely unexplained, mysterious, unaccountable, bizarre, yet there are some features of Faulkner's
portrait of Abner Snopes that warn us it would be a mistake to appreciate him only as a simple villain. Make it your
business, in your third reading, to pay attention to details that indicate:


That there are things about him that are impressive, even admirable. Tick off in the margin details that illustrate
these qualities.
That his "world view" is radically different from that which has come to be the established one, and that his sense
is that the proper basis for self-respect is something that on its own terms makes sense.
Make an effort to see how Snopes' picture of “what should be” is hard for us to appreciate because the picture that is
established is difficult for the rest of the characters and for us ourselves even to imagine. What we find so deeply
threatening we are tempted to regard as simply unintelligible. Your task here is to resist that temptation. Try to
discover how Snopes' picture might be at least intelligible - even if, in the end, you decide that you would reject it.
What does Snopes evidently see as the principles that he is defending, from a position of severe disadvantage? Do
you have some idea, historically, of how the circumstances came about that he sees as antagonistic to these principles?
The key questions, then, concern Abner Snopes’ motivation. On the face of things, his behaviors are bizarre and
unaccountable. But are they ultimately? (Remember: your task is not to find a way to endorse Snopes - only to
understand what drives him.) Explain, using specific examples from the text as well, as your understanding of the
social, moral, and economic values of the old and new south.