Faulkner and Joyce William Faulkner Famously Said Essay

Faulkner and Joyce

William Faulkner famously said that "The human heart in conflict with itself" is the only topic worth writing about. Several short stories have proven this quote to be true. The narrators of both William Faulkner's "Barn Burning" and James Joyce's "Araby" are young men who are facing their first moments where childhood innocence and the adult world are coming into conflict. Both boys, for the text makes it evident that both narrators are indeed male, tell of moments in their youth when they first came to realize that childhood would not be eternal. Each boy believes has come to a point where he has to make a choice whether or not to follow his own convictions or to follow along with the mandates of the adults around him. The stories each have a young male presence narrator, an experience with the adult world that forces growth and maturity, and ends with the heartbreak of a young boy who has come to the world of men with sadness and pessimism.

Both Joyce's "Araby" and Faulkner's "Barn Burning" have a narrator who speaks from the perspective of an older man reflecting upon his memories of when he was an innocent young boy. In the opening, the narrator says, "North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boy free" (Joyce 1). This shows that the narrator is talking from some time in the future. The use of past tense verbs indicates that he is reflecting on a memory rather than describing a present.Similarly, the omniscient narrator of Faulkner's story reveals himself to be speaking for a young boy. The child is still young enough that he believes his father without exception even if his father is not on the side of the law.

In both stories the narrator is experiencing his first brushes with the barrier between childhood and adulthood. In Joyce's "Araby," a young boy is completely infatuated with a female in his neighborhood. "I kept her brown figure always in my eye and, when we came near the point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace and passed her…Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance" (Joyce 1). This boy has barely ever spoken to this girl and yet she intrudes upon his every thought. This is the nature of innocent infatuation and the beginnings of the path to adulthood. Not yet mature enough to comprehend the limits of his emotion; the narrator feels that he will remain enamored of this vision for the remainder of his life. Instead of a love, the young boy in "Barn Burning" is facing an ethical crisis. His father has committed arson in the past and is preparing to do so again. The child knows before the father leaves the home what is going to happen. Last time, the father sent a messenger to warn the people, but this time he will not (Faulkner 28). The two males, the child and the man face off in this moment. At the beginning of the story, Sarty would not have dared to act against.....