Universal Themes And Family In Faulkners “barn Burning” And “the Diary Of Anne Frank”

not only within the family, but within the community. Sarty discovers that his communal identity is inseparable from his father’s actions when, despite having nothing to do with the various fires, he is singled out and personally accused of being a “barn burner.” In addition to turning his father in and turning his back on his family, Sarty finishes the ordeal by heading “toward the dark woods,” thus symbolically exiting the civilized world to define himself in the absence of others’ desires, demands, or opinions.

Likewise, Anne is acutely aware of the injustice of her persecution, lamenting that while “What one Christian does is his own responsibility, what one Jew does reflects on all Jews.” However, because she doesn’t quite have the freedom to embark on a personal vision quest, she cannot separate herself from the relationships that (mis-)define her – or the annoyances that provoke her to live down to their standards. Frustrated, Anne instead finds herself wishing that “there were no other people in the world.”

While “Barn Burning” and “The Diary of Anne Frank” bear almost no resemblance to each other in terms of plot, setting, character, narration, or those other major literary identifiers, they actually have a lot of common ground in how they apply to us as readers. This is the beauty of stories: when we take a moment to stop thinking of them as literature and start thinking of them as storytelling, the gap between the words and the world closes.

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