Since we were not able to get to it in class, I thought it was important to evaluate the ending of Barn Burning, specifically focusing on how Colonel Sartoris feels regretful about turning his back to his family and specifically his father. At the end, after Snopes has been shot, he reaches the hill and Faulkner writes, "At midnight he was sitting on the crest of a hill. He did not know it was midnight and he did not know how far he had come. But there was no glare behind him now and he sat now, his back toward what he had called home for four days anyhow, his face toward the dark woods which he would enter when breath was strong again, small, shaking steadily in the chill darkness, hugging himself into the remainder of his thin, rotten shirt, the grief and despair now no longer terror and fear but just grief and despair" (Faulkner 157). It is important to notice how Faulkner focuses on describing the setting as dark and gloomy. He describes the time being midnight and how he saw "no glare," it is pitch black, he also describes it as cold. One is led to believe that breaking out of the horrible oppression under his father's domination would be later described as happy. Thinking back to Jessica Benjamin, she says that when someone breaks out of the binary they typically end up not knowing what to do with their new found power and turn into their old oppressor. We see this start to sprout in the last paragraphs.
Faulkner, towards the end, uses pronouns such as "he" and "him" when talking about Colonel Sartoris to show how he in himself is his own self. By using pronouns, it seems as if Sartoris is a whole new person since his disengagement with his father. He separates himself from his father but then defends him and says "he was brave!" (Faulkner 157). This example reinforces Benjamin's statement that after a revolution, the rebels then scramble to find a form of government or power and end up resorting back to the only thing they know, the previous form of power, and thus the cycle only continues.
I did find it interesting how perfectly the Benjamin article lined up with the Barn Burning story. The remorseful revolution is ultra present in this one.
ReplyDeleteI like your analysis on the pronouns, I did not catch that in the story. I agree, once he breaks off from his father, he really becomes a new person.
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