Barn Burning
Antonio Webb
Professor Debra Germany
English 2336
14 November 2012
Barn Burning
In “Barn Burning”, a short story by William Faulkner, a boy finds that he can no longer be governed by his father’s ideas and tries to prevent his father from doing further harm, and leaves his family in the process. Sarty Snopes desire is to break away from the moral deficiency of his family life and live life with some resemblance of normalcy even at the expense of never seeing his family again. A growing body of evidence, suggest that humans have a moral sense from the very start of life and family does not instill this moral compass from the very start of life. His father was a man of little or no education who had developed an attitude in life of catering to no one but himself even at the expense of his family. The story begins with Mr. Snopes on trial for burning a neighbor’s barn after sending a black man over for his hog and actually warning the man that hay and wood burn. Shortly afterwards the neighbor’s barn burned and the story begins in a court of the Justice of the Peace. Sarty, is remembering all this and the details of the court room which was actually a storeroom in a grocery store. The man whose barn was burned asks that the boy testify and the judge is hesitant as this was not proper protocol in that time. The man says the boy does not have to testify and the case is dismissed due to lack of witnesses. The boy says he would have had to tell the truth had he been forced to testify even though he has a very real fear of his father. The father actually hits the boy who had defended the family honor by fighting someone in the crowd calling them barn burners. The father knows the
boy would have testified and he tells him that they have to stand together against the world. This is obviously a common occurrence in the young mans life and always ends up the same, they
Professor Debra Germany
English 2336
14 November 2012
Barn Burning
In “Barn Burning”, a short story by William Faulkner, a boy finds that he can no longer be governed by his father’s ideas and tries to prevent his father from doing further harm, and leaves his family in the process. Sarty Snopes desire is to break away from the moral deficiency of his family life and live life with some resemblance of normalcy even at the expense of never seeing his family again. A growing body of evidence, suggest that humans have a moral sense from the very start of life and family does not instill this moral compass from the very start of life. His father was a man of little or no education who had developed an attitude in life of catering to no one but himself even at the expense of his family. The story begins with Mr. Snopes on trial for burning a neighbor’s barn after sending a black man over for his hog and actually warning the man that hay and wood burn. Shortly afterwards the neighbor’s barn burned and the story begins in a court of the Justice of the Peace. Sarty, is remembering all this and the details of the court room which was actually a storeroom in a grocery store. The man whose barn was burned asks that the boy testify and the judge is hesitant as this was not proper protocol in that time. The man says the boy does not have to testify and the case is dismissed due to lack of witnesses. The boy says he would have had to tell the truth had he been forced to testify even though he has a very real fear of his father. The father actually hits the boy who had defended the family honor by fighting someone in the crowd calling them barn burners. The father knows the
boy would have testified and he tells him that they have to stand together against the world. This is obviously a common occurrence in the young mans life and always ends up the same, they
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