By: Frank J. Albert

     Abner Snopes in William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” is stolidly self-justified in his refusal to belong to any community. He is the hero of his own story – the story that plays out in his own mind as he retreats from one tenant farm battleground to the next – but he is too misunderstood by others to be taken for what he thinks he is.  Abner is on an unsanctified crusade to establish a firebrand individuality. Such a cause might be deemed credible, even admirable, but Abner’s efforts disturb instead. His actions are troubling not only because they are born of so little provocation, but mainly because Abner does not appear to understand the implications of what motivates him to torch barns and sully imported carpets.

     Questions about Abner’s crimes are answered with gestures of “wolflike independence,”

(Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 502) but these are defiant answers borne out in silence.  The second trial scene provides a clear picture of Abner’s method of facing a consequence. He makes no impassioned plea for understanding, no words that blame in inability to provide well for his family on an impoverished past and a shattered post-war South. Only claiming circumstance as his persecutor is beneath Abner; to make a verbal statement of victimization would be to admit defeat, and Abner will not surrender so easily. Any feeling of victimization is dwarfed by his solid belief in his own righteousness. There is no reason to defend or explain himself; he has only to point out that he is right, to bring his name, himself, his case to the attention of the powers that be. For Abner, attention itself is a victory; therefore, quietly standing before the judge in his suit against Major de Spain, doing little more than making sure that young Sarty does not mention his father’s past actions, is an accomplishment in Abner’s mind.

     In the Snopes “philosophy,” evil is an active force that must be confronted head-on, sometimes with violence. However, the distinction between violent action and evil is the cornerstone for the way Abner sees himself in the face of adversity. Evil is always the distinguishing characteristic of the opposition. Violence is merely the pen and ink with which Abner writes his response to the things he believes are evil. Abner’s violence becomes a spark of “holy anger” that recalls Moses shattering the stone tablets when he discovered his nation teeming with evil. In Abner’s limited vision, while he faces the circuit judge, he is a Jesus Christ facing Pontius Pilate. There is planned, however, no far-reaching redemption by Abner, for his job is not be the masses’ messiah. Salvation for any who share his plight would require restoration of systems destroyed, some hierarchy of a real leader and his followers, perhaps like the Confederacy rallying behind Robert E. Lee, to fight a mighty opposition.

     Although Faulkner tells us there was something about Abner’s independence, “even courage when the advantage was at least neutral” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 502) that could impress others, the impression comes not from an air of dependability, but from a certain feeling strangers got when witnessing Abner’s “ferocious conviction in the rightness of his own actions” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 502). Perhaps his convictions “would be of advantage to all whose interest lay with his,” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 502) but Abner’s acts of vengeance are a part of no grand scheme. They are too spontaneous for that. He is unaware that there may be others who do share his interests and his plight. Abner condemns himself to act alone, each drastic act sealed with fire, that respected element that “spoke to some deep mainspring of his father’s [Abner’s] being…the one weapon for the preservation of integrity” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 502). In other words, Abner’s lonely Calvary is followed not by resurrection, but by repeated self-imposed crucifixion. Abner “preserves” his integrity against one landowner through the use of “shrewd” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 502) fire, which only forces him to pack up his family and search for a new homestead where the cycle will be repeated. It had been so for ten years, as young Sartoris Snopes testifies early in the story – twelve moves before the family reached the land of Major de Spain. There is no new life rising out of Abner’s flames. He is blowing smoke, striking “without heat” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 503) leaving in ashes the property of others as well as the shrinking remnants of a unified family. While the arena and the opponent change, the result, Abner’s resolve and his one weapon, which makes breath “worth the breathing,” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 502) remain the same.

     Why continue to fight a war of undefinable goals against a ubiquitous enemy? Snopes himself would have difficulty answering because he is prompted by a drive he cannot control, a force that owns him. The demon warrior that drives Snopes causes him to view the battles as fights he cannot lose. There are only victories to be won, although the war itself is a losing proposition. Consequences mean little more to him than the opinions of his bovine daughters upon arrival at their paintless house on DeSpain’s property: “Likely hit ain’t fitten for hawgs.” Abner’s response, “Nevertheless, fit it will and you’ll hog it and like it” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 503) is a statement not only about a single abode, but about his entire crusade. The battle plan driving Snopes dictates that he and his family must find the rebellion against the DeSpains of the world fitting, or grow to fit the yoke. Following Abner demands it, for he is loyal to that which drives him.

     Abner’s loyalty is fraught with irony and contradiction. He belongs to no group and harbors no sense of loyalty toward any community, large scale or small. He is a specter who moves from county to county, a son of the South who failed to take part in his region’s most dramatic statement of individuality, a father “cut ruthlessly from tin” who “would cast no shadow” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 504) save for the shade of despair he imposes upon his family.

     The multiple moves the Snopes family must make, due not only to Abner’s deeds but because he is fortunate enough to have no hard evidence brought against him, carry an unstated sentence: the family cannot integrate. The nomadic lifestyle forced by Abner prevents them from finding security among neighbors. Worse yet, as proclaimed by the judge in the Harris case, they are no longer welcome in an entire area: “Leave this country and don’t come back to it” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 500). Ironic for one who works the land not to realize that the plant torn from its roots soon withers, and thus it is with the uprooted Snopes family.

     The Civil War is another chapter in Abner’s rootless biography. Although the fabricated tale of “captured horses” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 502) holds Sarty in its spell when the story closes, as born out by his last painful cries, “He was brave…He was in the war! He was in Colonel Sartoris’ cav’ry” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 515-516) he will come to realize that being “in the war” is much different from serving in the war. Abner’s role was the former. Faulkner suggests that the boy will come to realize this with age, and that the evidence is before him as “Barn Burning” unfolds. The small fires that Abner built can be traced back to those he built during the war, out of necessity we can assume, but also necessarily small because there were two armies from which he had to hide. Faulkner writes:

            Then he [Sarty] might have gone a step farther and thought that that was the reason: that 

            niggard blaze was the living fruit of nights passed during those four years in the woods 

            hiding from all men, blue or gray, with his strings of horses…. (“Barn Burning” 502)   

     The war provides another example of Abner disowning a community. In this case, it is his refusal to be part of the Confederacy. Simple separation is not enough. Like any aggressive general, Snopes must attack and pursue. Not only does he fail to show allegiance to the Confederacy, he feeds off it as well:

            wearing no uniform, admitting the authority of and giving fidelity to no man or army or

            flag, going to war as Malbrouck himself did: for booty – it meant nothing and less than

            nothing to him if it were enemy booty or his own. (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 516)    

     Abner’s war “efforts” had nothing of the sweet melodramatic lilt that sent thousands to the battlefield for glory and a cause. The sound he heard was not a chorus of “Dixie,” but the heavy jingle of profit that leads him to declare a personal war on both Union and Confederate. The only cause he knows is himself.

     Adding to the story’s irony is that Abner’s youngest son is named for Colonel Sartoris, commander of the First Mississippi Regiment, and a local hero. The name is unusual because Abner was not only unloyal to the Confederacy, but in opposition to Colonel Sartoris. While “Barn Burning” states that Abner was shot by a Confederate provost while stealing a horse (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 501) mention is made in The Hamlet of Sartoris shooting Abner for attempting to steal the Colonel’s stallion (Faulkner, The Hamlet 744). In addition, The Unvanquished describes Abner being whipped by a group that includes Bayard Sartoris due to his involvement in the death of Rosa Millard (Faulkner, The Unvanquished 437). Abner’s hatred of the gentry, which includes the Sartoris family, is obvious because they have punished him.

     While it is ironic that Abner should name his son after not only the cause of physical pain but a representative of the landed gentry he despises, the name casts a fitting light on the father-son relationship. In “Barn Burning,” Abner’s most dangerous enemy lies within his own family, from which he has isolated himself. Sarty’s constant personal debate about his own silence concerning his father’s actions, is a point of concern for Abner. He is aware of the boy’s pressing conscience early in the story. Hence the lecture on the Snopes blood philosophy: “You’re getting to be a man. You got to learn. You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain’t going to have any blood to stick to you” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 503). Not only does Abner appeal to his son’s sense of family loyalty, he also burdens him with matters of machismo. Lying, or at least withholding the truth for the sake of a family member, is the mark of manhood. Sarty must clear his mind of innocence, of his concern with truth and justice and become “a man.”

     Truth and justice nag Sarty, but he has no words to express such concepts. Abner’s words, however, are prophetic. He has thrown down the gauntlet before his young son, and as Sarty walks toward his future without looking back in the story’s pastoral concluding paragraph, he decides to reject his “own blood.” His isolation, however, is different from Abner’s, for Sarty’s was brought to fruition by conscience, and he leaves not so much his family as “the fear and despair and the old grief of blood” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 500). By his actions, the boy is true to the name Sartoris; like other men of that name, he has grown to oppose Abner Snopes.

     The blood ties speech is what marks Abner indelibly as a figure consumed by himself and his own vengeance. Of all the communities Abner forsakes in “Barn Burning,” the family is the most striking because we expect it to be the last bastion of security and comfort. Abner uses the idea of family loyalty only as a way to protect himself. He will bequeath to his children neither a justifiable set of values, nor a collection of family legends rooted in goodness, not even simple money, but instead the need to lie for him because he believes the opposition would do the same if placed in his situation. Thus, Abner perpetuates more of his own kind, more “depthless, harsh silhouette[s]” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 507).

     The lecture to Sarty has already been successfully delivered to Sarty’s brother. This older brother, captured in his dullness and pictured “chewing, blinking slowly and steadily at nothing” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 509) is ready to carry out his orders for the attack on De Spain. What Abner preaches to Sarty is not for the purpose of engendering familial respect, but a way to protect himself from detection. It is a weighty and deep burden of guilt, a burden of blood.

     Abner’s economic concerns are immediate and strong, but they are awash in a powerful envy of those who have. He seeks to neutralize the odds not by acquisition but by requisition. In “Barn Burning,” Snopes shows no inclination to push himself onto a higher level of living; instead, his attempts are to take away from others, piecemeal, until they sink to his level. The principle involved is that one must define oneself in the face of adversity. Doing so will preserve personal integrity. It is Abner’s methods that are distorted.

     To understand the degree of Abner’s immersion in his crusade, we can look at his view of working for Major De Spain. He describes himself as property the gentry plans to own. He says, “I reckon I’ll have a word with the man that aims to begin to-morrow owning me body and soul for the next eight months” (Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 504). Work has become a soul-selling proposition. With such an interpretation of the work ethic, it is easy to see why Abner’s self-definition is exaggerated. The injustice he sees pierces beyond the skin. The fight takes on a nearly spiritual tone. It becomes a conflict to free the soul.

     Abner Snopes, high-priest or prince of darkness, draws no boundaries for his battleground, nor does he envision a satisfying end for this crusade. For Snopes, the question is not what do others have that can be taken away, but what can be gained by brutal action? His bitterness has isolated him from any source who knows that the answer is nothing beneficial, and his hatred of society has blinded him to any plausible means for change.

     “Barn Burning” is a tribute to the scope of Faulkner’s fiction. Not only does he guide us through unfolding events, but he gives us cause and effect through details of a past tarnished by time and deeds. He also escorts us to a later date when the mind of a young boy has matured, set forever against the history of his father. A story of initiation and rites of passage to come, of conflict social and internal, “Barn Burning” applies the values Faulkner emphasized in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech: “Courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice” (Faulkner, “William Faulkner’s Speech of Acceptance” 4).

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                                                Works Cited

Faulkner, William.  “Barn Burning.” The Faulkner Reader: Selections from the Works of William        
Faulkner, Random House, 1954, pp. 499-516.

Faulkner, William. “William Faulkner’s Speech of Acceptance upon the Award of the Nobel
Prize in Literature. The Faulkner Reader: Selections from the Works of William Faulkner, Random House, 1954, pp. 3-4.

Faulkner, William. The Hamlet. Faulkner: Novels 1936-1940, edited by Joseph Blotner and Noel Polk, The Library of America, 1990, pp. 731-1075.

Faulkner, William. The Unvanquished. Faulkner: Novels 1936-1940, edited by Joseph Blotner and Noel Polk, The Library of America, 1990, pp. 321-492.

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FRANK J. ALBERT lives in Western Pennsylvania and has taught Humanities courses in Pittsburgh area colleges. His work has appeared in literary journals including Armstrong Literary, Mag Pie Magazine, Marrow Magazine, Night Picnic Press, and Literary Heist.