Barn Burning: A Review

William Faulkner’s ”Barn Burning” is an endearing tale about self-discovery and acceptance.

‘Barn Burning’ by William Faulkner is a twisted story of a man, Abner, who finds some perverse sense of joy in setting afire someone else’s barn. “Barn Burning” is set roughly 30 years after the Civil War, the story revolves on two members of the Snopes family: Abner Snopes, a poor sharecropper who takes out his frustrations against the post-Civil War aristocracy by burning barns, and his ten-year-old son, Colonel Sartoris Snopes “Sarty”.

Faulkner also depicts the alienation and loneliness felt by Sarty in ”Barn Burning” as he finds himself on the verge of moral awareness. His father’s crime cuts him off from the larger social world of which he is growing conscious. This sense of alienation however takes more prominence with regards to Sarty’s relation with his father, who should be the moral model and means of entry of the child into the larger world. Because of his father’s criminal recklessness Sarty in the end finds himself the bigger choice of either alienating himself from his family or sticking to them.

In “Barn Burning, the story”s conflict arose when Sarty faced by the need to expose truth must choose between family and morality. The story’s primary theme also revolves around the relationship between father and son. This relationship is put to test as Sarty is faced with an important decision to choose between defending his father and defending the truth.

In “Barn Burning”, one finds an important symbolism through fire. In a way, the fire represents the father’s anger and, his lack of respect for other people’s property. As can be gleaned from the fact that the story begins and ends with the burning down of a barn.

At first, Sarty believed his father. He was prepared to defend his father at the first trial. But deep inside him he hopes that the fires will end, thinking, “Maybe he’s done satisfied now,”. Unfortunately, towards the end of the story, Sarty finds out that this was not to be so. Abner begins to set ablaze his next barn. This time his father breaks his own moral code by not sending anyone to warn. Sarty pleads, “Ain’t you even going to send a [slave]?” “At least you sent a [slave] before!” Sarty knows then what to do.

Unlike in his former barn-burning episodes when his father would warn the people before setting it ablaze, Abner does not intend to do this in his last barn burning episode. This explicit violation gives Sarty the impetus to break away from the ties that bind him to his own family- from the “the old blood which he had not been permitted to choose for himself”. A very courageous act indeed considering he is only ten years old.

He does not only intend to extinguish the fire that his father starts but more so he extinguishes the family connection. His act of warning the de Spain despite knowing fully well that he will incur his father’s ire sends off the message loud and clear that he is not going to be an accessory to his father’s crime.

Fortunately, unlike his elders, Sarty is not corrupted enough to let go of his morality. The “pull of blood” is not strong enough reason to corrupt Sarty’s principles. He decided to take matters in hand to make him into what he seems destined to become. He stood by his principles and breaks free from his family’s influence as epitomized by Sarty’s breaking loose from the strong grasp of his mother’s hand in the story. Just as Sarty is able to let go of his mother, he too is able to let go of his ties as he strive to pursuit nobler and bigger goals.

‘Barn Burning’ ends with Sarty turning his back and fleeing his family. At the conclusion of the story we find that “he was a little stiff, but walking would cure that too as it would the cold, and soon there would be the sun. He went on down the hill, toward the dark woods within which the liquid silver voices of the birds, called unceasing-the rapid and urgent beating of the urgent and inquiring heart of the late spring night. He did not look back.” It is the most telling line in the story which proves that Sarty chooses not to look back to his family’s painful past and move on without them.