4 page essay

Your Name:

Instructor Name

Course Number:

Date:

A Better Story to Break Conventionalism

Though all of the literary versions of the Cinderella have been a childhood fairy tale that most of the people have grown with and most appreciated, the burning barn with an amalgamation of darkness, struggle, and self-believe succeeds in driving wave of victory and revolution by choice of goodness over the blood relation. Cinderella, on one hand, is a mellifluous story where a beautiful girl has been betrayed by fate in the beginning, but later shone bright and became crowned with the aid of magic and fairy Godmother while on the other hand, in ‘Barn Burning’, through the character ‘Colonel Sartoris Snopes’, the reader learns the way to rise through the flood of depression by overcoming the mental struggle of choosing one side over the other. The two stories have their way of creating leap of hope in an initially betrayed fate to rise into something great, i.e., in ‘Cinderella’ in terms of status and power and ‘Barn Burning’ in terms of independent decision making but both have used different set of symbol, metaphor, and element from different state of time to grow into two successful stories. Both stories are almost analogues in presenting the issue of ‘inequality’ present at those periods of time. But in another hand, when the contribution of story towards generating a wave of radical thinking, unconventional, and the strength of the main character is taken into account, the readers are more impacted by the ‘Barn Burning’ than ‘Cinderella’ as the former best presents the inequality present at those times, self-effort rather than allusion to break conventionalism, and the victory of goodness over nepotism.

One of the analogies in both the stories is the raising of issues related to ‘Equality.' The stories, first version of the ‘Cinderella’; the European version, and ‘Barn Burning’ were written in early 16th century and early 19th century respectively. The period when these stories were written was the time when the inequality had reached its peak. People were battling their internal self to emerge out from the oppression and wanted to be set free. The leading character ‘Cinderella’ is shown to be oppressed by her wicked step-sisters and step-mother, while the character ‘Sarty’ in ‘Barn Burning’ has been oppressed by his father regarding his belief. The character in both the plot has initially been victimized and has been suppressed to hide their opinion. ‘Sarty’ was told and even hit by his father to follow his blood path whatever the consequences were or whatever his self-belief was when he was nearly going to expose the truth of burning the Harris’s barn by his father in front of the justice. At that moment, he had to struggle with his internal self to endure and believe his father’s deed were the correct ones. This was the first sign of oppression shows in the plot. Another act of oppression could be seen when there was a silent fight against the inequality by Abner, Sarty’s father; the act of burning barn and destroying his landowner rug was the result of the discrimination between rich and poor that persisted during those time. Hence, both the stories have managed to show the most relevant issues of those times, i.e., inequality and discrimination.

When the strength of the main character are to be observed in ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Barn burning’, Cinderella seems to be confined to herself and hasn’t expressed her efforts throughout the plot whereas in Sarty as well as Sarty’s father, both seem to fight for being relieved from the oppression they were facing at those times. Cinderella, being a fairy tale indirectly generates reluctance in reader’s mind. Cinderella has later gained her new recognition literally through the magic of her fairy Godmother and continuous effort of the prince to find the owner of the lost ‘glass slipper.' No any direct effort of Cinderella can be seen in the story, she has rather enjoyed herself in the chores and household and accepted the domination of her step-sisters and step-mother. Even when her step-mother and step-sisters forbade her from going to the royal event, she sat beside crying and mourning. Her character has only been strengthened by the appearance of fairy godmother else she would have never been the recognized Cinderella ever. However, in the ‘Barn Burning,' the characters have spoken and even fought out for their independence. Abner, couldn’t endure the discrimination he faced and he exposed his resentment through series of actions of burning barns of the wealthy land owners. While, Sarty, the antagonist raised his voice shouting ‘Barn’ thrice, when he realized that the action of burning barn wasn’t a correct way of dealing with the situation which even led his father being shot and dead. Even though his action resulted in the death of his father, he is shown to be calm and felt a sense of independence marching towards the wood without looking back. Hence, the character and plot in ‘Barn Burning’ magnifies the strength in reader’s mind to be active and rebellious towards the unjust happening around himself rather than accepting fate and waiting for the magic to happen.

The third point that has been unevenly emphasized in both the plot is 'nepotism and favoritism over fair and just policies that existed at those times. Cinderella was a step daughter, little deviated from the blood relation compared to her step-sisters to her step-mother. The step-mother loved her daughter, bought them beautiful dressed and encouraged them to get wedded to the prince. If in the plot, Cinderella hadn’t lost her mother, she would have faced similar mother’s love and would have been caressed by her mother and father. This clearly reveals act of nepotism and favoritism; prioritizing their closed blood relation than others. In the ‘Barn Burning,' similar was expected by the Abner from his son Sarty, so he forced his son to follow his path. During those periods of time, the act of nepotism has been very concentrated throughout the workforce and corruption had led to the clear distinction between the wealthy and the have-nots. In ‘Barn Burning', Sarty opposed his father later at the end of the story, though in the beginning, he made himself abide by the path of his father. When Sarty was put in front of the justice to speak the truth, he thought Mr. Harris as his ‘father’s enemy’ and thought that implied Mr. Harris to be his enemy too. He was in a state of confusion for taking either his father’s side and speak the lie or take ‘his father’s enemy,' Mr. Harris side and speak the truth . There was a constant collision between two sides; truth or lie in Sarty’s mind. But when he could finally decide that his father doing were wrong, he stood up and spoke aloud; the point when the trend of nepotism broke over the truth. When this is to be compared with ‘Cinderella,' ‘Barn Burning’ has broken the conventionalism and the trend of Nepotism and favoritism by choosing right over the wrong.

So, all in all, a comparative analysis when presented for ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Barn Burning,' the latter has successfully been able to outstand in the criteria as mentioned earlier. The analysis has depended on the criteria that are the strength of each of the character in creating a notion of courage and self-effort, the story’s ability to break conventionalism present in the reader’s mind and drive towards justice and equality, and presentation of the prevalent issues at those periods of time. The analysis of ‘Barn Burning’ showed that it best presented the issues of inequality and discrimination between the rich and the poor that existed at those time, showed that its character wasn't silence but rather were of action and didn’t wait of any sorts of magic to happen to see a better future, and finally favored right over the wrong or just over the relation. Hence, ‘Burning Barn’ can be said as a revolutionary story written by William Faulkner and is, in fact, a successful one.