discussion question

In “Barn Burning,” the protagonist has a pretty concrete external struggle—it’s him against his dad. But in another sense, he’s struggling internally with an idea, a concept, a belief system. What kind of thematic questions does the boy’s internal struggle present to the reader?

2. Which of the critical theories that you read about struck you as especially interesting? Give a brief sense of how you might apply that theory to one of the works we read this unit.