Author(s)

Jiayi Kang

Corresponding Author

Jiayi Kang

ABSTRACT

In a well-known short story Barn Burning of William Faulkner, we can plainly see his attitude towards the female characters. The story, setting on the American civil war, mainly demonstrates class conflicts, racial conflicts, moral conflicts and the father’s vengeance viewed through the third-person perspective of a young boy Sarty. In the story, William Faulkner laid less stress on the description of the female characters, like Sarty’s mother Lennie and his sisters, which seems to be unimportant and redundant. Nevertheless, the arrangement of those female characters is elaborate and profound. Through analyzing those female characters’ submissiveness from the feminist perspective, it will not only do us a favor to better understand the story, but also show us a vivid picture of women’s living conditions in American South at that time. At the same time, with regard to William Faulkner's life and writing background, this paper will further investigate the traditional social values, life styles in that era, as well as the author's historical consciousness to these female images with suppressed humanity and distorted soul.

KEYWORDS

Barn Burning, feminist, William Faulkner