Key Concepts

Both "That Evening Sun" and "Barn Burning" reflect Faulkner's Mississippi and Southern regionalism, drawing on the social patterns, class and ethnic conflicts, and the language of its people. "That Evening Sun" evokes the mood of the American gothic tales, stripped, however, of the "fantastic" and "phantasmagoric" so that what remains is the tension triggered by the revelation of what Nancy intuitively believes to be her inevitable fate. "Barn Burning" draws upon the social conflicts growing out of the emancipation of black slaves and blurring of class and social roles in the South during the American post-reconstruction period following the Civil War.

To learn more about these and other key concepts, please consult the Glossary of Key Concepts.