The themes of "Barn Burning" are related to cultural and
socio-economic class distinctions, namely family
clannishness. The Southern agrarian tradition holds that family justice
supersedes national legal justice. This is why the South seceded from the Union and why
Snopes expects his son not to sell him out to the
judge.
Another main theme is Faulkner's
disregard for "past." He
says:
“The past is never dead. It’s not even
past.”
AND
“[T]o
me,” Faulkner remarked, “no man is himself, he is the sum of his past. There is no such
thing really as was because the past is. It is a part of every man, every woman, and
every moment. All of his and her ancestry, background, is all a part of himself and
herself at any moment.”
Sarty's decision to run
away from his family is noble, but--according to Faulkner--the boy can never escape his
father's and the South's legacies. They will forever haunt
him.
Irony is mainly
situational: Snopes' plans to soil De Spain's rug and burn his barn are spoiled by
Sarty. Snopes expects family clannishness to win out over social justice, but this, of
course, backfires.
Mood is
mainly Southern Gothic, with its focus on the grotesque Snopes, fire imagery, soiled
rug, and violent ending.
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