Fire Inside Of Abner example essay topic

Faulkner's "Barn Burning" takes place in the Deep South during the 19th Century and is a story about the relationship between a father and son. A father with a need to burn the barns of aristocrats resulting in dragging his family down with him; along with his knowledgeable son. This story presents itself through a lot of symbolism linked to Christianity. The first and main symbolism is fire. The meaning of the fire is taking into many ways, the character's personality and the Biblical beliefs. Abner is very much like the fires he sets, uncontrollable and destroy anything in its way, having respect for nothing.

Abner's son, S arty, attempts to put out the fire inside of Abner because he's sick of what his father is doing to the family and forcing them to share his punishments. Faulkner kind of writes this story as a moralist, portraying why a sensible approach to hardship and disappointments are essential in life to avoid someone's problems to get so bad that it devours them like an inferno. But fire can be seen not only as destruction but also as a way to purify. It cleans out what was there before, leaving ashes to make new soil and a new land. Fire was present when God spoke to individuals in the Bible.

When God chose to speak to Moses, .".. the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed" (Exodus 3: 2). 1 Kings 18: 24 speaks also of God communicating to people by fire", 'Then you call on the name of your god and I will call on the name of the Lord; the god who answers by fire is indeed God. ' All the people answered, 'Well spoken!' " Christianity, in addition to the tradition contained within the Hebrew Bible, also refers to fire in the New Testament. Before the beginning of Jesus' ministry, John the Baptist was asked quite frequently if he was the messiah. In Luke 3: 16, "John answered all of them by saying, 'I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

' " In Christianity, fire represents the Holy Spirit, which came down upon the apostles at Pentecost as "tongues of fire" (Acts 2: 3). Fire is often associated with the wrath of God. The God of the Bible used fire to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which contained people whom had disobeyed the law. "Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven" (Genesis 19: 24). In the New Testament stories regarding judgment (Matthew 13), weeds, which represent people not chosen, are sent to the "furnace of fire". And the Lake of Fire, where sinners are tossed to suffer, is seen as representing that some will have to die a second time and / or the removal of all impurities.

In the Old Testament, Abner is refered to as "the son of Ner", Ner meaning "to glisten or shine like a lamp" in Hebrew. (Strong 78-80) Coming from the Chaldee an root "ner", translated in the Old Testament as "fiery" or "fire". Abner meaning "the son of fire / burning". (Strong 77) The name Abner was used in Samuel 1 and 2, he was the commander in chief of the armies of Israel during the reign of King Saul. There were suggestions that Abner was not trying to protect the King's life, such as being ridiculed when David, who was being followed by the army, snuck through the camp after dark and steals a spear lying next to the sleeping King.

And the battle at Gilboa against the Philistines, the King and a number of his sons were killed, the army was in defeat and Abner had escaped. Then Abner uses on of Saul's sons, Ishbosheth, to oppose the reign of David. But Abner soon makes unreasonable demands of Ishbosheth, then takes one of Saul's concubines and indirectly makes claim to Saul's throne. And when Ishbosheth confronted Abner, he threatened to change his allegiance to David's side, leaving Ishbosheth shaken and speechless. (Loges) Figuring not only that this story is out of the south and so is Faulkner, that the Bible Belt of the South would play a role in this story. And very ironic that the two major characters / pieces of this story have very strong Biblical backgrounds.

I believe that Faulkner had done his research and purposely planed all aspects of these Biblical references. From what fire goes to mean in the scripture, to Abner's mother's name to his name. That fire is a form of purity and cleansing and Abner, throughout Faulkner's story, burned these barns of aristocrats believing to have all right to do this. In a way, this extremely self-righteous character was purifying these people by taking away what made them greedy and gluttonous, their source of income after the war, their barns. Because of those people his pride had been destroyed, taking wrath into his own hands he sets ablaze the thing that makes these rich people survive. Pulling a bit of a centering around the seven deadly sins, whither it was intentional or just ended up that way.

This story had many Biblical symbolisms scattered through out it which fall into place with the plot that Faulkner constructs. Loges, Max. "Faulkner's Barn Burning". Explicator. Fall 1998. Strong, James.

The Exhaustive Concordance of The Bible together with the dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek words of the original with references to the English words. McLean, VA: MacDonald. 1990. The Holy Bible.