Barn Burning

Part I of Essay
Written as it was, at the ebb of the 1930s, a decade of social, economic, and cultural tumult, the decade of the Great Depression, William Faulkner's short story "" may be read and discussed in our classrooms as just that--a story of the '30s, for "" offers students insight ....

Part II of Essay
.... This depiction of the agrarian society of the Sartoris family connects Faulkner to the nostalgic yearnings for a past expressed in I'll Take My Stand, the Fugitives' manifesto of 1930, a book opening the decade yet echoing sentiments of past decades. At the start of our classroom discussion of "," we can explain the tenets of the Fugitives, their traditional, aristocratic attitudes, and their reverence for the landed gentry life style. We can focus on the description of the de Spain home and property, with its opulence and privilege, ....