Snopes In Barn Burning

Words: 1251
Pages: 6

Dealing with internal conflict will be something that every human being experiences at some or another in their life time. This is exactly what Colonel Sartoris Snopes “Sarty,” a ten-year-old child, encounters when he has to decide rather to remain loyal to his father or fight for what internally knows what is right for society. Being the major character in William Faulkner’s, “Barn Burning” this young boy is placed under a great amount of pressure when he has to lie for his father. He is called to witness in this make shift court, making a hasty decision to remain loyal and protect the freedom of his father or be honest and do what is right for the protection of others possession. In the story, there will be a dynamic change in Sartoris character from being an innocent child with no positive direction to an independent soul learning what is not acceptable to society. Contrastingly, Abner, the father is a very negative individual who character is flat and possess no …show more content…
It is possible that this anger is stemmed from early in his time line “thirty years ago” where he retrieved an obvious leg limp from damage to his heel ( ). Abner was a soldier in the Civil War and hit with a “Confederate provost’s man’s musket ball” bomb ( ). Fighting in this war left him bitter, underprivileged, and disable. Although, Abner is left with these negative feelings and deficits, he realizes the only valuable fortune he has is his small family and a couple worn equipment like, a “battered stove, broken beds and chairs, the clock inlaid with mother of pearl, which would not run” ( ). As he feels bitterly about what he doesn’t have in his life, he constantly moves his family and minimum possessions from town to town after he set ablaze to others property to justify for unacceptable court rulings given to