Currently, the entire top floor of the MoMA is dedicated to the works of art created by an artist of the 20^th century, Francis Picabia. Picabia is a fascinating artist whose style throughout his many years of painting ranges from Impressionism to photo-realism to cubism to Dadaism to abstraction. As you walk from room to room on the 6^th floor of the MoMA, you pass through different displays of each of his styles of painting.

One of my favorite styles was his abstraction paintings. Particularly, the I See Again in Memory My Dear Udnie painting attached to this post. As I read the sign next to the painting, which states its name and a little background information, I learned that there was a story behind this painting. The painting was inspired by a professional Polish dancer that Picabia met abroad a ship on his way to New York. She brought him about to watch her performances in NY, which were so highly provocative at the time that she had gotten arrested. Leaving such an impression on him, he composed several paintings inspired by this woman for nearly two years after. This abstract painting shows some greyish and brown tones with light yellow and pinkish-red tones and figures in the center representing the woman. There also seems to be almost like a figure on the bottom left grasping the “woman.” Maybe the figure representing Picabia? This painting is not only fascinating, but relates to our consistent class theme of human connection. Through this painting, Picabia is creating a visual of the feelings, sensations, and connection he felt towards this promiscuous woman.

In Freud’s Family Relationships he discusses the inter family relationships from birth on. Primarily focusing on a childs relationship with his parents throughout his/her lifetime.    He begins the article by speaking about the idea how a baby admires their parents and wants to look like them. They then begin to agree with everything their parents say, and want to emulate everything they do. When the child grows up he becomes less fond of his father. Then he speaks about the Oedipus complex. Where a child has sexual relations with the mother. I do not agree with this, but I do see where he’s coming from. Faulkner’s “Barn Burning,” is related to Freud’s ideas on relationship. It relates to Freud’s ideas in that it discusses the conflict between a father and his son. This story is about a boy, Sartoris, that has a conflict with his father, and debates whether or not to protect him. Sartoris knows that his father burnt down the barn of Mr. Harris, but debates whether to protect him. He sees the judge as evil, just because he is going against his father, this is very true to relative to Freud’s theories on the relationship between father and child. But it changes as the child rats out on his father knowing that he was wrong.

          According to the “Family Romance” by Freud, there are different stages of ideology as a child is growing up. The first stage is children always see their parents as the most trustful and powerful people in the world, they will tend to imitate their parents and wish to be same as them. In the story “Barn Burning” by Faulkner, there are two characters stand on two different positions. The father, although he is a father, I think his mind is still a child at the rebellious period. He burned the neighbor’s farm only because he didn’t like the neighbor’s action. He stained the carpet only because the house is nicer than his own. From here I could expect that the father’s parents didn’t give him enough love when he grows up. The little boy in the story is a tangled character. He has his own thought, he know what is right or wrong. When he was called up to testify if his father fired the farm, he was confusing. He didn’t want to lie, which means he knew his father was not innocent. As his thought changed, he put the neighbor as the enemy, because the neighbor was enemy of his father. The little boy loves family, he once believe his father could change better, become a person who take care of the family. He is satisfied with what he had right now, so when he saw the nice house, he didn’t felt jealous. But he only worries about his father. He is not satisfied with his father’s irresponsible, but he keeps a hope that one day his father could change. This is what Freud said that “beginning to criticize his parents”. At the end, when his father decided to fire the barn, the inner struggle brings the little boy to notice the white man. As Freud said: “so that in fact the child is not getting rid of his father but exalting him”, the little boy did not blame his father, instead, he said “He was brave”. Whether how the father did, he always the brave one in the little boy’s heart, he is his father forever.

Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” illustrates Freud’s idea of family in his “Family Romance.” In “Barn Burning,” Abner Snopes clearly emphasizes the importance of family loyalty as he yells at Sartoris to stay loyal to blood late night in the forest. “You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain’t going to have any blood to stick to you,” (Faulkner, 3) Mr. Snopes tells Sarty. Sarty has a hard time deciding whether to stay loyal to his family when he knows what his father does is wrong and unlawful. Freud suggests in his short piece that a young child only has their parents to learn from in the early ages. But soon they grow and start to wish they could replace their parents. “Indeed the whole effort at replacing the real father by a superior one is only an expression of the child’s longing for the happy, vanished days when his father seemed to him the noblest and strongest of men and his mother the dearest and loveliest of women” (Freud, 2). In Faulkner’s story, Sartoris wishes his father would correct his ways and stop burning barns out of revenge and anger. After a struggle with his own family, Sartoris frees himself and warns Major de Spain. This eventually gets his own father killed. Reflecting on this, we see Sartoris grief for a while but continues to walk on without looking back. He is completely independent now that he chose to be loyal to the law instead of loyal to his family.

In the article, “ Family Relationships” by Sigmund Freud psychologist in modern era, argues and emphasize abnormal theory on families relationships, and unique qualities. Beginning of the article he mentions about how child will focus on their parents, like they want to looks like their mother or father. They admire the they parents are ideal for them. For a small child his parents are at first the only authority and the source of all belief.” They feel like whatever parents says are correct. And then they start to compare their parent to other parents and see the qualities. Most of the times childs feel they slighted because of some reasons. Sometimes they not feel or receive the full love, attentions and talks from their parents because they share this things with their siblings. Also he talks about how child will develop the sexual relationship, by imagining himself and feelings.

Another story, Faulkner’s “ Barn Burning”, is all about family relationship and theories of family. This story relates to Freud’s idea and talks about same thing. The boy who have conflict with his father. Boy burned the Mr. Harris to protect his father or whatever because child thinks that their parents are correct whatever they do it. For child parents actions are most important and they believe them. But later on when boy learns about his father mistakes.

Family Romance is very evident in Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”. We can see in Snope’s maturation the progression of family romance that Frued talks of. First Snope out of obligation and respect of his father as well as the fact that he views his father as an authorative figure, protects him. He lies for the court in order to protect his father despite his growing hatred for him. Already here we can see that his degenerating feelings for him is becoming to mature. However, he still has a bit of respect and oblgation toward his father as he has grown up with him as an authoritative figure. Another example of family romance is the fact that he has nuch more hatred toward his father than his mother. We can see his feeling toward his motjer as evidence of family romance in Faulkner’s story. As the story progresses, so does Snope’s maturation process. He is beginning to feel like he doesnt need to follow the authority of his father. He feels himself more reluctant to lie for his father. He begins to try to evidence his father. Finally in the end, he decides to give his father in and reveal that the burning was his doing. He does this without hestitaion or looking back. At this point in the story he is considered to be fully matured. Like Frued describes, young kids grow up admiring their parents and slowly they mature and shift in their perception of their authoriatative figures. Here we can see exactly that in Faulker’s story.

In his article,”Family Relationships,” Sigmund Freud, perhaps the most controversial and studied psychologist in the modern era, argues an interesting and unprecedented theory on families relationships, and their unique links. Freud argues that in the beginning, a child has extreme admiration for his parents, father and mother alike. He says that the child regards his father as an ideal person and wants to be like him. He then says that as the child grows older he  or she starts to gain a disdain for the father, arguing that a boy has more contempt  than a girl. He attributes this disdain to the child’s growing sexual desires for his mother while his father is in the way.

Faulkner’s “Barn Burning,” is a directly related to Freud’s theories on relationship. It relates to Freud’s ideas in that it discusses the conflict of Sartoris, the boy has with his father, and whether or not to protect him. Initially Sartoris know’s his father burned down the barn of Mr. Harris, although he feels to protect his father because, as Freud would say, “For a small child his parents are at first the only authority and the source of all belief.” He thinks that the judge is the enemy without even knowing or seeing anything. His father actually tries to protect this authority by shielding him from the outside influences. Later on, when the boy learns that his fathers actions were wrong on all accounts, he rats him out. Although not because of sexual thoughts both readings describe the certain conflict.

Faulkner’s Barn Burning, touches upon key points mentioned in Freud’s Family Romances, more specifically the aspect of childhood maturation. Freud states that “a boy is far more inclined to feel hostile impulses towards his father than towards his mother and has a far more intense desire to get free from him than from her,” meaning that it is normal for adolescence to reach a point in their lives where authority becomes a subject of scrutiny rather than fear. During the first trial when Sartoris is put on trial, he decides it is necessary to perjure himself for his father’s sake, not out of compassion but rather fear of authority, as evidenced by him saying “he’ll have to do it.” Towards the end of the novel, and what we can assume to be the end of Sartoris’ maturation, he makes a conscious decision to run away from the authority of his parents to directly implicate them in the burning of his current employers barn. This action in warning de Spain can be seen as the end of his maturation because he finally has the ability to see his parents in a non-authoritative way.

Sigmund Freud, a famous and controversial psychologist, had fascinating ideas on the mechanisms of family relations. He referred to the mix of these subconscious and suppressed fantasies between family members as the “family romance.” Freud states that, as children, we put our parents on a pedestal; they are the best, the smartest, and we want to be just like them when we grow up (leaning towards the parent of the same sex as us). We are highly dependent and attached to our parents as children. As we hit puberty, Freud believes that we begin to resent the parent of the same sex as us as we begin to subconsciously fall in love with the parent of the opposite sex as us; we want to get rid of and take the place of the parent of the same sex. As we get yet older, we have compared our parents to others and have realized that they may not be as perfect as we had previously thought.

In William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning,” Startoris’ relationship with his father displays many of the concepts composing Freud’s “Family Romance.” Startoris is a young boy who throughout most of the story is completely devoted to his father, Snopes, as Freud would have predicted. Although Snopes has done many destructive acts, Startoris still supports and defends his father as much as he possibly can. Statoris shows his support for his father as he states about his father’s enemy that he is “our enemy … ourn! mine and hisn both! He’s my father!” Ultimately, however, at the end of the story, when Snopes attempts to burn down another barn, Stratoris sees that his father isn’t the best person (parallel to Freuds beliefs) and actually rats on him, getting Snopes killed.

By reading Sigmund Freud’s Family Romances, he pointed out “The liberation of an individual, as he grows up, from the authority of his parents is one of the most necessary though one of the most painful results brought about by the course of his development”, and “But as intellectual growth increases, the child cannot help discovering by degrees the category to which his parents belong. He gets to know other parents and compares them with his own, and so acquires the right to doubt the incomparable and unique quality which he had attributed to them”. Faulkner’s story made a pretty perfect example of Freud’s theory and illustrates Freud’s understanding of family, conflict, and maturation. In Faulkner’s Barn Burning, Faulkner through a child’s perspective of a child in the face of fair justice, family origin, other inner conflict and difficult choices. The father Abner Snopes temper, use stable burning way to solve the contradiction between with employers and neighbors. When the father had conflict with Mr. Harris, he hired people burned Harris’s stable, and therefore defendant to court. Satoris, his youngest son in the family, don’t want his father to be punished, looked at his father had to perjury. But in the heart of Satoris, this is contradictory. Know that his father’s approach is to violate laws and regulations, no moral, but struggled in the loyal family lineage and adhere to the suffering of justice. In the end, Satoris finally made a decision that escaped his family and told the true to the owner, but this cause his father Snopes’ death.