‘Instructor’s Name’
‘Subject’
Compare and Contrast William Faulkner's Barn Burning and Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
William Faulkner and Shirley Jackson are two of the most renowned authors of the modern American literature. Despite lack of any formal unity, the works of Faulkner and Jackson share many thematic and stylistic elements. Their stories are laconic, narratives are direct, and they portray ordinary characters in seemingly mundane pursuits. The stories of our discussion ‘Barn Burning’ and ‘The Lottery’ are both very different from each other in their plot, setting, and characterization. However, in both the stories familial and social ties plays a huge role in determining the outcome of the incidents narrated. While both the authors have dealt with the theme of loyalty and the pressure it exerts on an individual, the treatment of the theme and its purpose in the story varies widely between these two works.
‘Barn burning,’ first published in the year 1939, deals with the moral conflict of a young boy called Sarty Snopes. Sarty has an authoritative father, Abner, who is a sharecropper. After having a fall out with his landlord, Abner burns the barn of his landlord and forces his young son to lie to the judge who investigates the case. The entire family is evicted from the town, and Abner finds work in the farm of Major de Spain.
Here too, Abner has a tussle with his landlord and, as a result, plans to burn down his barn too. Knowing his plans, Sarty is forced to choose between his loyalty towards his family and his own moral values. In the end, Sarty warns Major de Spain about his father’s plan and runs to meet Abner. He however hears a gunshot and presumes that his father is dead. He decides not to return to his family and continues his life alone.
The Lottery, written by Shirley Jackson, was first published in the year 1948, and describes the events of an American village and their deadly tradition. It is an unnerving story about conformity gone mad. The villagers are preparing to conduct an annual event called ‘Lottery.’ Initially, the story proceeds to describe how the townspeople and the children prepare for the event as though it is a normal celebration.
The story proceeds in the same vein for most of the narrative, giving mundane details about the community life and the anticipatory air in the village. Not until the end of the story, does the reader comes to know that the entire event involves selecting the name of a random villager to be stoned to death. The unfortunate person selected for the ritual is Tessie Hutchinson. She is stoned by the entire village, and she dies moaning how the entire practice is unfair.
Faulkner’s Sarty, a young boy, is subjected to an extreme internal conflict whereby he is forced to make a hyperbolic choice. On one side is his loyalty to his father, who insists that blood ties are more important than truth. On other side is Sarty’s sense of justice, which urges him to right the wrong, did by his father. The whole story is a tug of war between Sarty’s allegiance to his family and his morality.
His father tries to persuade him to accept his version of justice both through psychological and physical violence. Sarty has two choices in front of him – he can either accept this version of justice like his brother who chooses loyalty over morality or he can listen to his own sense of justice and warn the landlord. Though Sarty, desperately tries to side with his father the apparent nature of his father’s deeds urges him to do what is right.
Gerald Runkle, a renowned author of ethics, states that family loyalties are a special kind of group loyalty, which blinds an individual’s concerns and obligations to other groups. This is the type of loyalty Abner expects from his sons.
"You're getting to be a man. You got to learn. You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain't going to have any blood to stick to you.”
However, Sarty who has a steep sense of justice knows that his father is doing a wrong thing and his obligations to the society reigns over his loyalty towards his family.
In The Lottery, the author deals with social ties and the deep sense of loyalty associated with the community and its traditions. Jackson critiques community systems, and how people blindly endure injustices to exhibit solidarity with the system. In many ways, in this story, the system is the protagonist rather than the characters. The many events described in the story aim at delineating the elements of the community and how it functions, rather than giving insights into the characterization of the people involved.
Critics label this story as the ‘folklore of the modern suburb,’ and the main message of the story is how society accepts certain inhumane practices and does not oppose them in the name of communal loyalty. The story is a psycho myth that captures the hypocrisy of adhering to meaningless traditions. It is a direct attack on American society’s obsession with finding scapegoats, during the cold war era, and, in general, on all forms of destructive social behavior.
The loyalty of the families described in the story elucidates their deep-rooted sense of belonging to the community. They perceive their unity to be their power and derive pride in their culture and traditions. When they hear that in some towns the ‘lottery’ practice has been abolished, the village elders express their displeasure at the news. They say that the people who quit this practice as ‘young fools,’ and say that the lottery has always been there.
"They do say," Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, "that over in the north village they're talking of giving up the lottery.”
This showcases how without realizing the purpose of the exercise, some social practices are carried out generation after generation just for the sake of tradition.
During the meeting, we see that Tessie was socializing with all her neighbors and seem to be quiet friendly with Mrs. Delacroix and Mrs. Graves. However, once her family’s name comes up and she says that it was unfair as her husband was not given enough time to pick the paper he wanted, the same friends turns hostile. They say,
"Be a good sport, Tessie." Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, "All of us took the same chance."
This shows how even long established friendships frizzle out the minute a person does something that defies the system.
While, Sarty’s father asks him to choose his loyalty to family over his loyalty to community, Jackson’s villagers are asked to adhere to their loyalty to their community by willingly sacrifice one of their family members. Even little Davy Hutchinson was handed over pebbles to throw at his own mother. Here, the community systems force family members to turn against each other with fatal results. This is the theory espoused by communist philosophers, whereby they believed all subjects should be ‘freed’ from family attachments for the good of the community and for their own good.
Sarty, on the other hand chooses to ally with the social systems, and tries to prevent the damage caused by his father on his fellow community members. Though he loves his family and desperately tries to find a justification for his father’s act, he realizes that his father’s path is not justified and leaves his home to lead his life alone.
Abner has an inherent resentment towards the system where rich landlords enjoy the benefits of the poor farmer’s hard work.
"Pretty and white, ain't it?" he said. "That's sweat. Nigger sweat. Maybe it ain't white enough yet to suit him. Maybe he wants to mix some white sweat with it."
He wages a proxy war against them by burning their barns, which are symbolic of their wealth. Barn to him represents the wealth accumulated by the landlords gathered by exploiting poor farmers. He is in direct conflict with the societal system and he tries to ally his son on his side, however, his son chooses his allegiance to his community over loyalty to his family.
The interests of the community and a man’s family don’t always coincide. As Runkle opines, to be loyal and charitable to one group, in some cases, is to be uncharitable and disloyal to the other. Today, like in the times of Faulkner and Jackson, the world is full of unwanted conflicts, pollution and poverty, and some individual sacrifices are needed for the sake of greater good. Loyalty to one’s family is moral, but so is one’s duty to mankind. Just like in times of war, when a man is willing to sacrifice himself for his nation, an individual should be willing to impose sacrifices on himself and his family for the good of humanity. However, a person should focus on serving the social whole while trying to serve his family. An ideal world society with genuine spirit of community is good, but it should not be based on prejudice and outdated traditions.
Works Cited
Faulkner, William. Barn burning. 1939. Pdf.
Jackson, Shirley. The Lottery. 1948. Pdf.
Nelles, William. "The Lottery." Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series (March 1995): 1-3. Print.
Runkle, Gerald. "Some Considerations on Family Loyalty." Ethics, Vol. 68, No. 2 (Jan. 1958): 131-136. Print.
