A protagonist is known as the main character in a work of fiction and an antagonist is the one that is the opposition. In Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” and “A Rose for Emily,” the protagonist is more self-explanatory. The protagonist in the two stories can be found and understood throughout the story. The innocence of Colonel Sartoris Snopes, “Sarty Snopes”, the son of Abner Snopes, leads to the fact that he is inevitably going to be the protagonist in “Barn Burning.” The protagonist in “A Rose for Emily,” Emily herself, doesn’t have the innocence that Colonel Sartoris Snopes has, but with her history and life experiences one must feel sympathy for her. Though these protagonists are prevalent and easily revealed throughout these stories, I …show more content…
will be discussing who I believe is the antagonist to these two individual characters. In “Barn Burning,” the antagonist in my opinion is clearly Abner Snopes, the father of Sarty Snopes.
Abner Snopes is a very poor father figure for Sarty, which makes it even more impressive that Sarty has such a straight head on his shoulders. Throughout the story, Abner is seen forcing Sarty to help burn down barns. Not only does Abner force Sarty to go against his will and burn barns, but he also forces Sarty to lie about the act when in court. Eventually Faulkner’s antagonist’s actions and foul parenting catch up to Abner. After de Spain, Abner’s current employer, plans to sue Abner for ruining his carpet, Abner plans to burn down the de Spain barn. Being filled with guilt and fed up with his father’s actions, Sarty runs to warn the de Spain family. He does not make it on time. By the time he warns them, the barn is in flames. De Spain has just enough time to catch up to Abner and shoot and kill the …show more content…
antagonist. In “A Rose for Emily,” the antagonist is hard to be narrowed to one person or element.
Just as in “Barn Burning,” Emily’s father figure had antagonistic traits to him. Though he did love her and was not as short-tempered as Abner, he still could be picked as an antagonist for this story. Emily’s father plays a key role for Emily’s loner tendencies. Growing up, her father kept Emily isolated from much of society and never accepted any guy she brought home. Another antagonist that could be found in the story is Emily herself. Throughout the story, Emily is viewed as the protagonist and attracts a feeling of sympathy from the reader. Faulkner stated, “At last they could pity Miss Emily,” (pg. 80) when talking about the death of her father. As Emily goes through her trials in life she does indeed receive sympathy. However, Emily’s actions throughout the story and especially towards the end can be viewed as self-hindering. Emily locking herself up and never leaving her isolated state to make a positive change in her life, makes me lose sympathy for her. The view of being the protagonist changes once Emily purchases the arsenic at the drug store. Emily then uses the drug to kill her former lover, Homer Baron. Instead of being the poor lady with the sad upbringing of a strict father, Emily becomes a cold-blooded murderer by the end of the story. However, Emily is more of a product of her
upbringing In his two stories Faulkner shines light to real life struggles that may not be common among everyone. Faulkner shows the effect the antagonist in both stories have on the lives of their children. In “Barn Burning,” Faulkner gives us the insight of the upbringing of a child with a misguiding father figure. A parental figure is normally the one that most children look to as a role model. It is where many find their sense of morality. Sarty, in “Barn Burning,” has had to grow up and find his own way. Sarty is forced to make mature decisions that a normal ten-year-old should never have to nor is equipped to make. The type of decisions that even cause the death of his own father. By the end of the story, the antagonist is killed as a result of his own actions. In “A Rose for Emily” Faulkner shows, again, how poor parenting can have lasting effects on the life of the child. The antagonist is the root of Emily’s demise in this story. Emily never learned to adapt to society which led to her misguided actions. Emily was not equipped to handle the struggles life can deal. The antagonist in these two stories cause the downfall of either themselves or their child, either directly or indirectly. As stated in the beginning the antagonist is the opposition in the story. The parents in both stories were clearly the cause of the conflict and opposition in both situations.
Faulkner first tells that shortly after her father’s death Miss Emily’s sweetheart left her. Everybody in the town thought that Emily and this sweetheart of hers were going to be married. After her sweetheart left her the people of the town saw her very little. Faulkner then tells what might be viewed as the climax of the story next. He explains that one day Miss Emily went into town and bought rat poison. By revealing this so early on in the story it challenges the reader to use their imagination. The readers’ view of Miss Emily could now possibly be changed. It has changed from feeling sorry for this woman to thinking she is going to murder someone.
In "A Rose for Emily" and "Barn Burning," William Faulkner creates two characters worthy of comparison. Emily Grierson, a recluse from Jefferson, Mississippi, is an important figure in the town, despite spending most of her life in seclusion. On the contrary, Abner Snopes is a loud, fiery-tempered man that most people tend to avoid. If these characters are judged by reputation and outward appearance only, the conclusion would be that Emily Grierson and Abner Snopes are complete opposites. However, despite the external differences, these two characters have surprisingly similar personalities.
William Faulkner has written some of the most unique novels and short stories of any author, and, to this day, his stories continue to be enjoyed by many. Both “Barn Burning” and “A Rose for Emily” tell about the life of southern people and their struggles with society, but Faulkner used the dramatic settings of these two stories to create a mood unlike any other and make the audience feel like they too were a part of these southern towns. These two stories have many similarities in there setting, but they also have many differences to that make them unique and interesting.
After the Justice had declared that there was not a substantial amount of evidence to convict Ab Snopes of the crime, he ordered the family to move out of town.... ... middle of paper ... ... He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.”
Emily was drove crazy by others expectations, and her loneliness. ““A Rose for Emily,” a story of love and obsession, love, and death, is undoubtedly the most famous one among Faulkner’s more than one hundred short stories. It tells of a tragedy of a screwy southern lady Emily Grierson who is driven from stem to stern by the worldly tradition and desires to possess her lover by poisoning him and keeping his corpse in her isolated house.” (Yang, A Road to Destruction and Self Destruction: The Same Fate of Emily and Elly, Proquest) When she was young her father chased away any would be suitors. He was convinced no one was good enough for her. Emily ended up unmarried. She had come to depend on her father. When he finally died, ...
Understanding literary elements such as patterns, reader/writer relationships, and character choice are critical in appreciating William Faulkner's Barn Burning. Some literary elements are small and almost inconsequential while others are large and all-encompassing: the mother's broken clock, a small and seemingly insignificant object, is used so carefully, extracting the maximum effect; the subtle, but more frequent use of dialectal words which contain darker, secondary meanings; the way blood is used throughout the story in many different ways, including several direct references in the familial sense; how Faulkner chooses to write about poor, common people (in fact to the extreme) and how this relates to the opinions of Wordsworth and Aristotle; and finally, the relationship between the reader and writer, Faulkner's choice of narrator and point of view, and how this is works successfully.
Sarty’s father, Abner Snopes is accused of burning down a barn and Sarty is called upon to testify against his father and to tell the events of what happened. He wants to tell the truth because it is the right thing to do, but he knows he might have lie to save his father from being reprimanded. To his relief, it is decided that Sarty will not have to testify and is dismissed from testifying. It is decided by the Justice of the Peace to order Abner and his family to leave town at once.
...s story he writes about how earlier in Emily’s life she refuses to let the town’s people in her house even though there is a strong odor that is coming from her property. In this section her father has just passed away and was abandoned by a man who she wanted to marry. This section she becomes very depressed. In section three it talks about how Emily is starting to come down with an illness after all of the depressing events she had to endure. In sections four and five Faulkner describes how there is fear throughout the towns people is that of which Emily is going to possibly poison herself. A while later she then she passes away. In section five is when the truth is revealed to the public about her sickness. Faulkner uses the view point of an unnamed town member while he uses a third person perspective to show the general corrosion of the southern town’s people.
Miss Emily’s isolation is able to benefit her as well. She has the entire town believing she is a frail and weak woman, but she is very strong indeed. Everyone is convinced that she could not even hurt a fly, but instead she is capable a horrible crime, murder. Miss Emily’s actions range from eccentric to absurd. After the death of her father, and the estrangement from the Yankee, Homer Barron, she becomes reclusive and introverted. The reader can find that Miss Emily did what was necessary to keep her secret from the town. “Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years” (247).
In the short story Barn Burning, William Faulkner sets the scene in a courtroom located in a corner store market. Protagonist, Abner Snopes, was being accused of burning down Mr. Harris’s barn. Because of this, the Snopes family gpt forced to leave the country and never come back. They then moved to a beautiful new place where Abner worked as a sharecropper for Major De Spain. Not long after working for them, Abner ruined their valuable rug by intentionally tracking horse manure onto it. When told to clean it he used soap that completely destroyed it. Major de Spain fined Abner 20 bushels of corn, which caused Abner dto take Major De Spain to court. The Justice only deducts the punishment from 20 bushels to 10 bushels of corn. Due to Abner's rage he plots to burn Major de Spains house by instructing Sarty to gather kerosene. Meanwhile Sarty cautioned Major De Spain about his father’s motives. And lastly, three gun shots went off, but Sarty had no desire to look back to see who was killed.
It was hard for her mother to have a baby at a young age herself and try to make ends meet was not easy. She needed to lean on others for help, which she thought at the time was right thing to do, but got caught up on her new family. This is why Emily had so much resentment towards her mother. This story is a great example of a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship. The story does great job showing the mother’s anguish over her daughter, and a depressed teen that needed her mother and is struggling to overcome a very unhappy childhood.
Should I do this? What if I am wrong? Is it the right thing to do? I bet those are questions that pondered on Sarty's mind every time he took a decision. On "Barn Burning", Sarty and Abner, our main characters in the story, seem to have contrasting personalities. The representation between the idea of what Abner and Sarty symbolize two contrasting forces- loyalty and truth- that fight against each other.
In “ A Rose for Emily”, William Faulkner tells the complex tale of a woman who is battered by time and unable to move through life after the loss of each significant male figure in her life. Unlike Disney Stories, there is no prince charming to rescue fallen princess, and her assumed misery becomes the subject of everyone in the town of Jefferson, Mississippi. As the townspeople gossip about her and develop various scenarios to account for her behaviors and the unknown details of her life, Emily Grierson serves as a scapegoat for the lower classes to validate their lives. In telling this story, Faulkner decides to take an unusual approach; he utilizes a narrator to convey the details of a first-person tale, by examining chronology, the role of the narrator and the interpretations of “A Rose for Emily”, it can be seen that this story is impossible to tell without a narrator.
At the beginning of the story when her father died, it was mentioned that “[Emily] told [the ladies in town] that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body” (626). Faulkner reveals Emily’s dependency on her father through the death of her father. As shown in this part of the story, Emily was very attached to her father and was not able to accept that fact that he was no longer around. She couldn’t let go of the only man that loved her and had been with her for all those years. While this may seem like a normal reaction for any person who has ever lost a loved one, Faulkner emphasizes Emily’s dependence and attachment even further through Homer Barron. After her father’s death, Emily met a man name Homer, whom she fell in love with. While Homer showed interest in Emily at the beginning he became uninterested later on. “Homer himself had remarked—he liked men” (627) which had caused Emily to become devastated and desperate. In order to keep Homer by her side, Emily decided to poison Homer and keep him in a bedroom in her home. It was clear that she was overly attached to Homer and was not able to lose another man that she
Emily was kept confined from all that surrounded her. Her father had given the town folks a large amount of money which caused Emily and her father to feel superior to others. “Grierson’s held themselves a little too high for what they really were” (Faulkner). Emily’s attitude had developed as a stuck-up and stubborn girl and her father was to blame for this attitude. Emily was a normal girl with aspirations of growing up and finding a mate that she could soon marry and start a family, but this was all impossible because of her father. The father believed that, “none of the younger man were quite good enough for Miss Emily,” because of this Miss Emily was alone. Emily was in her father’s shadow for a very long time. She lived her li...