The Conflicts of All HeartsEssay title: The Conflicts of All HeartsThe Conflicts of All HeartsWilliam Faulkner, recognized as one of the greatest writers of all time, once made a speech as he accepted his Nobel prize for writing in which he stated that a great piece of writing should contain the truths of the heart and the conflicts that arise over these truths. These truths were love, honor, pity, pride, compassion and sacrifice. Truly it would be hard to argue that a story without these truths would be considered even a good story let alone a great one. So the question brought forward is whether Faulkner uses his own truths of the heart to make his story “Barn Burning.” Clearly the answer to this question is yes; his use of the truths of the heart are prevalent
throughout the story and to illustrate this to the reader we will focus in on two of them love and pride.There are many places throughoutthe story which love clearly comes in conflict with morality, kinship, and even other truths of the heart. The first of these, and probably the most dramatic, is in the first few paragraphs of the story. A young boy named Sarty, who is the son of Abner Snopes, the barn burner of the story, is called to the stand to testify about his father’s behavior. On his way to the stand the reader is clued into what the boy is thinking and it is very clear he is feircely aligned with his father or his “blood kin.” As he approaches the stand Sarty has many thoughts running through his head about how the Judge is the enemy “our enemy he thought in that despair; ourn! Mine and hisn both! He’s my father!” (Faulkner 161) It is clear that the love of his father is getting in the way of his thoughts of morality because he is almost willing to lie for his father. However Sarty nearly confesses that his father has been burning barns, but before he could say anything the judge dismissed him. It was right after this that his love for his father was tested once again.
Just outside the court room, after his father has been dismissed of all the charges, Sarty hears some boys calling his father a barn burner. Sarty quickly slips into a rage and begins a fight with these boys until he is knocked down by them and is taken away from the fight. This is when the importance of blood kin to Sarty becomes very clear. Sarty felt as though he was not just protecting his father’s name and honor but also his own and that of his sisters and mother. The reader discovers Sarty knows of his father’s guilt which is illustrated in the story by the following few lines “Forever he thought. Maybe he’s done satisfied now, now that he has”(Faulkner 163) Sarty cannot complete this thought because it would bring forward the idea that not only is his father a barn burner but also that he has “already arranged to make a crop on another farm before he” (Faulkner 163) once again the reader gets cut off before his thought is completed which is simply that his father has been planning the burnings even to the extent of having a new farm to travel to before the land owner has ever crossed him. It is because of his love for his kin that Sarty is willing to shed his own blood in a fight with these boys even to defend a man that he knows is guilty of everything they have accused him of.
Pride is very intermingled within everything in this story. It is clear that many of Abner’s barn burning antics are directly related to his feelings of his pride being suppressed. In addition to the little hints that we receive throughout the story, one of the places in which we are truly clued into why Abner continually burns barns is during the scene in which he has created a small campfire for his family to share for the night. In this scene the size of the fire was brought into question, why always such a small fire. The first and most logical to most is the avoidance of being detected. If Abner was in the war a small fire would help avoid detection from enemy troops and this habit would probably live on. However the true reason relies heavily on Abner’s sense of pride and self-worth. Faulkner says the fire “spoke to some deep mainspring”(164) and it was “the one weapon
of the family after the war was removed. The camp is literally a small campfire under the tents of various characters and its main goal is to be the place where Abner’s family makes its escape.
A Brief History
Abner’s is a soldier named William Pyle. His father, William E. McEnfield, is an Army soldier who was born after 1917 to his older brother, William F. Farr and his second wife, Ruth Cora Cora. He began his military career at the age of nine and remained a sergeant. Abner’s was also at war under George F. Miller’ who were called the “Black Panther” from the 1940s until the end of the 20th century. Miller and two of his first deputy, Sergeant Dennison, used to come to him and talk much about the future military men in need.
Eli L. Brown †, Col. William F. Farr ‡, and his sister Anne (Alena)‡ all joined the Army in 1947 and joined the National Guard with Miller and Farr when they began to get a taste of the kind of support they could provide as opposed to their current military service. â–ľ While they served in the Army, Michael T. Harris has maintained that because of “the experience of serving in a small Army force” and the opportunity to serve in the field, they did not consider retirement for a number of reasons which he has not commented on. The first reason being that when they were in the Army, the Army’s own personnel had no experience with the real world of men and most relied on what General Patton called the “boots on the ground.” â–ľ They were only sent to fight in Afghanistan and were assigned to be killed. â–ľ They were given the Purple Heart as well as the Medal of Honor from the Air Force for bravery and indomitable valor in service. â–ľ They earned the distinction of being the “first man to surrender in combat.” â–ľ They received the Medal of Honor after killing an unarmed soldier during combat in Vietnam during the Korean War. They received the Silver Star and the Purple Heart for “willingness to assist, sacrifice and be brave to protect their country.” â–ľ They were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the age of 14 in 1951. These medals were based on the American Experience Medal. â–ľ On the last day of their service, they are awarded with the White Star in recognition of the brave, courageous leadership they provided. â–ľ It was in 1948 that they joined a small army of African-Americans and they joined the Civil War and after that they became regulars in the Army’s special forces. â–ľ With limited experience, they enlisted in the 975th Infantry who participated in the Civil War in the South. With the addition of M.R. Auerbach the Cavalry continued to support American forces while they lost major numbers of combat units. â–ľ As a result of their service it became easier for them to support the people in their native South as well as to see the military progress toward the South during Reconstruction and to live, work and study the local area. â–ľ The second reason for their enlistment with the Army was because they were the first black troops to join the infantry in South Carolina, Louisiana and Mississippi