According to literary critic Wesley Morris, Addie Bundren is the Old South (155). "This is the myth that [Faulkner] will go to any length to deconstruct" (Morris 155)
" ain't studying no breakfast," Nancy said. "I going to get sleep out (Faulkner, I)
24). It has been suggested that this story is really a "coming of age" story, in which a son has to take a stand against his father and establish his own identity in order to become a man (Benson 642)
Faulkner wrote in the oral tradition. His "writing shows a keen awareness of the regional sounds of language and speech" (McDonald 46)
The farmers his father works for own property so there is constant tension between rich and poor. Unlike Hightower, the male character in Light in August, an impotent man who seeks to restore his masculine potency (Morgan 368), Abner, the father in "Barn Burning" lusts for the power that only a big fire can give him
Sawing and knocking, and keeping the air always moving so fast on her face that when you're tired you can't breathe it, and that goddamn adze going One lick less." (Faulkner 347) Here Faulkner lets the reader know that the corpse is disturbed, but the agency of that corpse's thought and energy takes the form of the boy