Barn Burning Sarty Research Paper

Sarty is in an internal conflict with himself due to his father, if he should stay loyal to him even though it is wrong, or doing the right thing, even if it means betraying Abner. His father tends to be very abusive and violent; he hits Sarty and says, “You were fixing to tell them. You would have told him.” “You’re getting to be a man. You got to learn. You got to stick to your own blood or you ain’t going to have any blood to stick to you.” (1958) Abner depends on his son to keep him from getting into trouble, but thinks he would’ve gotten caught because of Sarty’s “non-manlike behavior” at the court. Sarty has known all along that his father’s actions are wrong, yet he still helps him. When the Justice of Peace tells Abner to leave the country, a flood of hope and relief rushes over Sarty.

In the beginning, “Barn Burning” appears to be a story about an oppressive father and his family, who seems to be caught up in his oppression. As you read further in to the story you find that the story is focused on a young son of a poor sharecropper, who has to struggle with his father’s arsonist tendencies which are destroying his families’ reputation and life style, while coming to terms with his own morality. The young son, whose name is Colonel Sartoris Snopes, is the protagonist in this story. Sarty disapproves of his father’s destructive actions and soon has to decide whether to be loyal to his family or give in to his own values of morality. Abner Snopes, who is the boy’s father, is the antagonist in the story. Abner Snopes is a very angry man, who despises the aristocracy class of people whom he has to work for and throughout the story constantly displays this hatred. The story is narrated in third person and follows a typical format. In Faulkner’s writing style, he uses descriptive dictation to draw the reader’s in to the story. In the first paragraph Faulkner introduces us to the main character in the story, Sarty. Subsequently, throughout the story we are introduced to the other family members. The setting in which Sarty’s conflict is recognized is at

Beginning the short story one realizes Sarty can be characterized as a young shy boy who seems to be intimidated by his father. Immediately following Abner's first barn burning of the story, Sarty is convinced that

In the beginning of the story, Sarty is in a court room, where his father is being accused of burning a barn. Mr. Harris, who is accusing Albert, asks for Sarty to come to the stand to testify against his father. He comes to the stand, but the judge closes the case. The judge advises that Albert and his family move out of the county. When they walk out the court room, Sarty and his father are accused of being barn burners by a little kid. Then they head to the wagon with the rest of his family and they leave town.

He did not want to lash out at someone whenever something did not go his way, as Abner had. If Abner felt insulted in any fashion, he retorted in a violent manner, consequently that meant hitting his children or setting fires to barns. Sarty, in contrast, did not want to be hurtful. He showed this when he tells his mother to let him go, to prevent Abner from causing any more damage. “I don’t want to have to hit you!” he exclaimed (Faulkner 7). His first resort was not violence, and neither did he want it to be. “It is not his wish to take the road chosen by his father,” Ulf Kirchdorfer wrote in “The Almost Unbearable burden of Weight in William Faulkner’s ‘Barn Burning’”, “He did not want to deal with the de Spain family the way his father had planned. Sarty was… an unwilling participant in Abner’s schemes”(15). He knew that he was still under his father’s roof and must do what he said in order to avoid consequences, but he most certainly did not approve of Abner’s decisions. In the end, he decided to break away from all the violence, literally and

William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning,” is about a southern white family that resides in a rural county in Mississippi. The low-income family members are the mother Lennie Snopes, the older brother, two sisters, and an aunt. The story’s main characters are, Colonel Sartoris Snopes, a 10- year-old boy, the father Abner Snopes, the property owner Abner’s boss Major de Spain, and his wife, Mrs. Lula de Spain. Abner Snopes characterized as the antagonist, and Faulkner describes him as an evil, vengeful man that dislikes the upper-class landowners. Sarty Snopes, the protagonist in “Barn Burning,” struggles with being loyal to his father Abner, or stand up for right and wrong.

Throughout William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning,” little Sarty struggles with an internal conflict. He feels pressured to lie on behalf of his father, Abner, because he is family; but he also feels that he should tell the truth about his father burning the barn. All his life, Sarty was taught by his father that “blood” is the most important thing in life; and because they were a poor family, it’s all they had. Although Sarty was just ten years old, he knew that lying wasn’t the right thing to do. However, he continued to lie for his father out of fear of losing his family. As the story progresses, little Sarty’s internal conflict only gets worse. His father, who would never change his ways, decides to burn down his new boss’s barn. In order to try and stop his father from burning down the barn and to also stop having to lie on behalf of his father, innocent Sarty, warns the boss of his father’s plan, completely unaware of the danger this would put his father in. Ultimately, his father and brother are killed and Sarty leaves the rest of his family behind. In “Barn Burning,” through his character Sarty,

In Faulkner’s story Barn Burning Sarty watches as his father lives a unfulfilled life. Sarty’s father continually throughout the story blames others for his faults, and curses his son when

In the famous short shorty, Barn Burning by William Faulkner Colonel Sartoris Snopes is 10 year old who is struggling to find himself in a odd upbringing in the south. Though, this story is told in third person, the narrator keeps a narrow focus on Sardie and his feelings as character but Faulkner makes very purposeful choices within the narrative to characterize Sardie as a reluctant but courageous young boy. The character actions, dialogue and interactions with others are used to convey very important messages about the character’s motives but also the character’s storyline.

Jimmy was raised in a broken and unstable household where he developed feelings of guilt, repression and anxiety. These feelings he felt were deeply engraved into his memory and he was unable to escape them as they haunted him in his adulthood. It is made evident that his parents’ marriage is weak and falling apart because of their constant arguing. When Jimmy was a child, he decided to light a strand of his hair on fire. His father had blamed this incident on his mother because “the cigarette lighter wouldn’t have been there if his mother didn’t smoke” (Atwood 16). Jimmy’s mother fought back by saying “all children are arsonists at heart,

William Faulkner’s short story, “Barn Burning,” the character Abner Snopes, who is Sarty’s father as well as a main character of the story, stands out the most compared to other characters because of Faulkner’s description with a sense of irony and critic. Faulkner presents multifaceted characteristics in Abner Snopes that makes the readers think beyond the view of the narrator based on logics and circumstances in Abner’s conditions. The setting of ‘‘Barn Burning’’ is the post-Civil War South, the South of Reconstruction, in which a defeated and in many ways humiliated society is trying to hold its own against the Northern victor. It still maintains in private the social hierarchy that characterized the region in its pre-war phase. By knowing the setting of the story, readers can actually understand the social condition at that period of time.

Sarty hopes that their new home would change his father bad ways, but it won't because when Abner walks on Mrs. de Spain hundred dollar rug and deliberately tracks manure on it.When de Spain tells Abner to clean her rug he intentionally destroys the rug; his actions relates to his wounded foot and wounded pride. He resents being treated worse than most blacks would be treated.

Colonel Sartoris Snopes, who is referred to as Sarty, is the protagonist of the short story Barn Burning by William Faulkner. Sarty is a ten-year-old boy who lives in the south of The United States in the 1890’s. Sarty is the only round character in the story. His father, Abner, expects Sarty to help him burn other people’s barns and lie to the Justice of the Peace. Surprisingly, Sarty has a sense of morality and justice, even though he has been raised by a terrible man. He may have gotten this sense of justice from being in courtrooms so often, or Faulkner is suggesting everyone is born with a sense of morality. Sarty has this trait throughout the entire story, but he changes by realizing he can make his own choices. He refrains from being morally correct out of fear of his father. There are three main points that mark Sarty’s growth in the story: the first courtroom scene, the de Spain Mansion scene, and the last barn burning scene.

Peyton Travers Hensley English 11/second period 27 February 2018 Part 12: Rough draft #2 William faulkner shows his true literary work, and attracts many readers with it in the short story “Barn Burning.”

A bond between two people can be a powerful yet delicate force, and more often than not, it can be abused. Throughout human history, young and innocent minds have been manipulated by higher powers in attempts to create a population unaware of the immoral activities carried out by those in charge. Many religious cults and fascist governments have used this to create followers who blindly accept their corrupt rules and policies. A simple relationship or bond could be used as a method of control. However, this control sometimes fails, and some see through the corruption at the trutt. Following that, is a fight for independence. In the case of Sarty Snopes, his independence was gained through the struggles he faced with his father, Abner. His forced loyalty to his father’s crimes eventually pushes him to break away, but at the price of his father’s life. The story “Barn Burning” focuses on the struggles of the Snopes, a poor family forced to move after the patriarch, Abner burns down someone's barn. He tells his son Sarty about a special blood between them and says that he must stick to it. At the de Spain farm, where they move to, Abner does not adjust well, eventually going to his old ways and burning a rug. Forced with paying for the rug, Abner decides to burn down de Spain’s barn. Sarty, who has been on his father's side, decides to call him out to de Spain, causing him to go kill Abner, leaving Sarty without his father and looking at a new start. Throughout the story,