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Barn Burning Close Reading
Barn Burning Close Reading In “Barn Burning”, William Faulkner creates the ultimate story of choosing between right and wrong. Colonel Sartoris Snopes, a young boy nicknamed Sarty, lives torn between two different worlds. One is the life he actually lives, an ever-changing life of farm work and moving, where his father, Abner Snopes, burns down barns of anyone he feels has wronged him. Filled with despair, Sarty lives in constant fear of his father’s destructive and violent nature. The other world is the life Sarty desires, one without anger, filled instead with peace and justice. The main conflict arises within Sarty’s conscience. He knows that what his father is doing is wrong, but life with his family is the only one he has ever known. This conflict is fully exposed with Faulkner’s use of the idea of family “blood”, which symbolizes the clash between the life that has been chosen for Sarty and the life he desires. This idea of “blood” recurs numerous times throughout the story. Sarty can stick to his own “blood”, and live a life loyal to his family, one he knows is wrong but is the only one he has ever known, or he can do right and live a life of peace and justice. Unfortunately Sarty cannot have both, and in the end, must choose between the two. Early in the story, after Abner is told by the justice of the Peace to leave the county for good for supposedly burning down his neighbor’s barn, he confronts Sarty about the events that took place in the courthouse earlier that day:
‘You were fixing to tell them. You would have told him.’ He didn’t answer. His father struck him with the flat of his hand on the side of the head, hard but without heat, exactly as he had struck the two mules at the store, exactly as he would strike either of them with any stick in order to kill a horse fly, his voice still without heat or anger: ‘You’re getting to be a man. You got to learn. You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain’t going to have any blood to stick
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