William Faulkner is Nobel Prize winning American novelist, famous for his novels and short stories. The novelist wrote much using the themes of crime, suspense and mystery. For instance, the theme that he developed in his most famous short story, “A Rose for Emily,” was based on a psychopath caused socially by the unneeded over-protection of adults by their parents. It begins with the last arrangements of Miss Emily Grierson’s dead body. The deceased was the youngest of a family living in Old Jefferson, Mississippi. She spent her life in an old family house in a seedy neighborhood that was quite fashionable once. She was immensely attached to her father, who protected her from the bad intentions of the young women in the town as hard as with a horsewhip. She was too attached to her father to let his dead body be released for three days.
Emily got hooked up with a new arrival in the town, Mr. Barron, when she was thought to be too good for any of the local men in the town. Mr. Barron, who arrived in the town as a foreman to a team of construction, had a courtship with Miss Emily, and the whole town expected them to get married. However, they apparently saw Homer Barron move on. Miss Emily Rose, with the passage of time, lived more and more in solitude. Right after her funeral town’s men, along with the narrator of the story, entered Miss Emily’s house and forced their way to rooms locked upstairs. They were shocked and horrified to see the stuffed body of Homer Brown. On the pillow beside him was a head-shaped indention with a long iron-grey hair strand (Malone & Edward, 1990).
The Necrophilia of Miss Emily is graphical evidence that he withheld the past and refused to live in the present. The short story is a read of horror and psychopathy. The story vividly contains a detective element as Miss Emily goes to a pharmacy and buys arsenic right before the disappearance of Homer Barron. People see him entering Grierson’s house from the backdoor of the kitchen in the evening, and a dreadful stench surrounds Emily’s house for a while. The story provides the reader with all the clues to anticipate the climax scene. By the above-described plots of the story, it can be analyzed that Miss Emily suffered from socio-psychological situations that led her to commit murder and horrifyingly stuff the dead body to remain with herself till the end of her life.
In Barn Burning, William Faulkner used a theme of bad situations and circumstances causing abrupt action of murder as compared to the horrifying psychopath in “A Rose for Emily.” The Characters are portrayed in a very different social background from “A Rose for Emily” ‘s fine status in the town. In Barn Burning, a small kid named Sarty happens to arrive a country store, he is hungry and craves for the cheese and meat in the store and feels fearful. His father is facing the trial in the court as h is accused for burnt down of Mr. Harris’s barn. Sarty is called into the court for testifying and he is aware that he will be lying in telling that his father is innocent. Mr. Harris and the justice happen to see that they have put a child in a bad situation and let him go along with his father, telling him to leave the town and never return.
When Sarty came out of the court a boy named him “Barn Burner” and beats him twice. Sarty failed to chase the kid as he had to move into the family van to move out of the town. On the new farm, Sarty had hoped everything to go alright, but accidentally, his father ruined the rug of Mr. de Spain, and de Spain did not take pity on his family’s bad conditions and charged him 20 bushels. Abner (Sarty’s father) went to court, and the Justice, after finding that he damaged de Spain’s rug, told him to pay 10 Bushels. Abner was not happy with the situation and planned to burn the barn of de Spain. Sarty, sensing the bad action of his father, ran to inform de Spain but could not. He lost his father but did not feel sad about it as he thought of him as the major cause of problems in his and his family’s life (Yunis & Susan, 1991).
In both the stories, characters have committed serious crimes, but Faulkner have provided background causes of these crimes, making the readers feel sympathetic towards the guilty. Miss Emily Rose and Abner Snopes have been shown in very different socio-economic statuses and positions. Emily belongs to a well-reputed and fine family in the town, whereas Abner is a poor farmer working on wages for the masters of the farms. Emily belonged to a well-off family and was over-protected by his father, who was deceased and left her alone in a world of untrustworthy people. Abner Snopes was looked down upon by society, which considered him poor and did not offer him accommodating circumstances. Emily was a psychopath inclined towards necrophilia and extra- an introvert, not socializing at all with the people in the community and not having a family. Whereas, Abner Snopes was a victim of unsettling social and economic conditions for him and his family. “A Rose for Emily” is written in an expression by a narrator, whereas the events in “Barn Burning” are described in association with a child family member of Abner Sopes. The main characters of both stories are portrayed in completely different backgrounds and conditions of life (“William Faulkner Mystery & Detective Fiction Analysis – Essay – ENotes.Com”). The plotting of the scenes of crime is extremely different as Emily committed murder too silently to be known to anybody, whereas Abner’s crimes were open, loud and furious. However, the influence of the father is similar in both stories. As per narration style, “A Rose for Emily” is told in first person, whereas “Barn Burning” is told in third person narration.
Works Cited
Yunis, Susan S. “The Narrator of Faulkner’s” Barn Burning.”” The Faulkner Journal 6.2 (1991): 23.
Malone, Edward A. “Nabokov on Faulkner.” The Faulkner Journal 5.2 (1990): 63.
“William Faulkner Mystery & Detective Fiction Analysis – Essay – ENotes.Com.” ENotes, http://www.enotes.com/topics/william-faulkner/critical-essays/analysis-2.
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