Point_of_View_in_Poe_and_Faulkner

Belen, Bryce Acharya English 1B March 22, 2010 Point of View in “Barn Burning” and “The Cask of Amontillado” Both “The Cask of Amontillado”, by Edgar Allen Poe, and “Barn Burning”, by William Faulkner, tell stories of crimes that, for the most part, go unpunished. The stories vary greatly in style, plot and point of view, but use similar methods to impart ideas to the readers. “The Cask of Amontillado” is written as a first person account with limited omniscience - while “Barn Burning” is written in third person with centered consciousness. In both stories, the authors use point of view to either convey or exclude certain details regarding the crimes and their specific circumstances. Poe's “Barn Burning” follows the story of the Snopes family – a lower class clan of tenant farmers led by Abner (Ab) Snopes. Ab is a cold, angry man that feels as if he is constantly being wronged by the world. He takes it upon himself to enact his own form of revenge upon the upper-class landowners that employ him by burning down their barns – and in essence their livelihoods. In the process he is also involving his family in his wrongful conduct. This story is written in a third person perspective through the eyes of Ab's youngest son Sarty – and at times the reader is also given glimpses of his inner thoughts. This gives us an outsiders' perspective to the crimes being committed by Ab. In the beginning of the story, Sarty refers to the Justice of the Peace that is judging his father's trial as “our enemy”. At this point he is supportive of his father's decisions and obeys his father. Later, Ab scolds Sarty for not lying to the Justice, telling him that “[he's] got to learn to stick to [his] own blood” or else he “ain't going to have any blood to stick to [him]” (Faulkner, pg. 359). This summarizes one of the main conflicts in the story. Sarty is torn between staying loyal to his family, as his dad has tried to teach him, and his personal concepts of justice and morality. Ab's visions of justice are skewed, as seen when he tells Sarty that he needs to “be a man” and “[he's] got to learn” - referring to an earlier incident where Sarty almost told the truth about the barn burning to the Justice in the court (Faulkner, pg. 359). Ab has his whole family, besides Sarty, following in his footsteps and not second-guessing their actions. He tries to explain to Sarty that “all they (people in the courtroom) wanted was a chance to get at me because they knew I had them beat” (Faulkner, pg. 359). He doesn't acknowledge the fact that he has committed crimes and destroyed someones personal property. Sarty mentions that if he “had said they (people in courtroom) wanted only truth, justice, he would have hit me again” (Faulkner, pg. 359). Sarty knows that his views of truth and justice aren't the same as his father's. Ab feels resentment towards the upper-class and the rich landowners and feels justified in the courses of action that he decides to take. On the other hand, we as readers, are given the perspective of Sarty. He is still a young boy and has not yet been corrupted by his fathers' distorted worldview. Sarty is uneducated and illiterate, as seen when the narrator states that the “lettering” on the cans of meat and cheese “meant nothing to his mind” - but is still able to naturally infer the differences between right and wrong (Faulkner, pg. 359). Ab continues on with his trend of working for landowners and then burning down their barns' when he feels he has been mistreated. As the story progresses Sarty starts becoming more and more conscious of what they're actually doing – and at the de Spain household he begins taking on a positive, hopeful outlook – wishing that his father would feel the same thing as he and “change now from what maybe he couldn't help but be” (Faulkner, pg. 361). By being able to look at the story through Sarty, and reading his inner thoughts, we are cued in to all the details surrounding his father's crimes. The reader is given a background on the family, as Sarty recollects on the “dozen and more movings” that the family has gone through – which we can assume with reasonable doubt were probably due to similar barn burning incidents (Faulkner, pg. 358). We also know that despite Ab's feelings of righteousness and power when he commits his crimes, there isn't any real justification for what he is doing. Sarty slowly realizes this as the story unfolds – and so do the readers.