Barn Burning

Written as it was, at the ebb of the 1930s, a decade of social, economic, and cultural tumult, the decade of the Great Depression, William Faulkner's short story "Barn Burning" may be read and discussed in our classrooms as just that--a story of the '30s, for "Barn Burning" offers students insights into these years as they were lived by the nation and the South and captured by our artists. This story was first published …

…a deathlike desert; the New Deal programs seemed unable to bring Mississippi back from the brink; the state seemed to self-destruct and turn backward socially. It was at this time that Faulkner wrote "Barn Burning," a story including all of these social themes. Works Cited Agee, James, and Walker Evans. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941, reprinted 1960. Faulkner, William. "Barn Burning."Harper's Magazine, June 1939, reprinted in Collected Stories, New York: Random House, 1950.