"Barn Burning"

“Barn Burning” Analysis Paper Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning” is about a young man coming of age and being forced to decipher between right and wrong as life and his family constantly test his morality. Throughout this short story Faulkner shows how both external and internal forces play an important role in Sartoris’s changing perception of what is morally right and wrong. Sartoris is a ten year old boy that is constantly faced with the external force of his father trying to corrupt and alter his thinking, mixed with his internal conscience telling him what he knows and believes is morally right. At the beginning of the story Sartoris’s father is accused of burning down his landlord’s barn. Sartoris knows that his father wants him to lie and is terrified by the idea. This scene is the first time we begin to see him questioning his father’s version of morality and his own sense of morality begins to show. At this point Sartoris has to decide whether to remain loyal to his family or betray them by doing what he feels is morally right. When they arrive at their new landlord’s home Sartoris has hope that his father will change his ways and feel the “surge of peace and joy” that he feels being in this new home (Faulkner 804). But, like so many other times Sartoris’s father retorts back to his corrupt and cruel ways and sets out to burn down Major de Spain’s barn. For the first time we see Sartoris act on his internal moral values and warn the de Spain’s before his father can reach the barn to burn it down. In this moment Sartoris has made the choice between his family and his own moral code. The end of the story is significant to Sartoris because it coincides with the end of his inner moral turmoil. When he finally stops to catch his breath at the top of the hill the nightmare that was his life is now behind him and the unknown future is ahead of him. Although Faulkner leaves us with unfinished thoughts of what the future holds for Sartoris it is still