Barn Burning By William Faulkner Point Of View

Consequently, Snopes can feel superior to the black butler only because his own skin is white.Two hours later, Sarty sees de Spain ride up to his father.

Consequently, Snopes can feel superior to the black butler only because his own skin is white.Two hours later, Sarty sees de Spain ride up to his father.

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Fearful of his father's abusive behavior, Sarty knows that it is useless to respond: "If I had said they wanted only truth, justice, he would have hit me again." The campfire episode is also important because it affords Faulkner the opportunity to explain to us why Snopes burns barns.

Faulkner notes that the campfire is small, and he contemplates why Abner, who has such a penchant for fire, doesn't build a larger one. and hence to be regarded with respect and used with discretion." The threat of fire is his one and only source of power, to be used selectively and effectively should anyone cross his path and anger him.

Along with Sarty, we do not know what trespasses between the two men, but it is soon apparent that de Spain has brought the rug for Snopes to clean.

Later, not satisfied with the way his two "bovine" daughters do the job, Snopes picks up a field stone and begins to vigorously scrub — and ruin — the rug himself.

de Spain orders Snopes out of the house after he deliberately tracks dung on her rug, he pivots intentionally so that his boot makes a "final long and fading smear." Leaving, he wipes the rest of the manure from his boot on the front steps before looking back at the mansion and commenting: "Pretty and white, ain't it? It is, however, significant that the smearing is done with Snopes' wounded foot, which suggests his evil character.

We know that he was wounded in the Civil War, and because he had no allegiance to either side, he is resentful of his current place in life — a resentment that causes him to strike out blindly at any and all forces that oppose him, or that he perceives as a threat.

He fiercely aligns himself with a loyalty to blood and kin, as opposed to the justice of the court: ". Called to testify during the hearing, he is about to confess his father's guilt when the judge dismisses him; yet, when he is outside the courtroom and hears the boys calling his father a barn burner, he comes immediately to his father's defense, engaging them in a fight during which he sheds his own blood to protect his father's — and his own — name.

Thus, the literal importance of blood loyalty is strongly emphasized.

However, in the South at the time the story takes place, a black person could not deny admittance to a Southern white person.

More accurately, black men could not, under any circumstances, ever touch a white man, even if that white man was not part of the Southern aristocracy.