How Does Faulkner Present Sartoris In Barn Burning

In a cycle of subduing, a person may have to do something astonishing. A challenging act may be needed in order to gain hope into someone's life. In “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner, the main character, Sartoris, is a young boy who lives in a poverty-stricken family with a father that is leading him towards a dim future. Sartoris has his father as a source of knowing what misery and hopelessness comes from their family. Sartoris is determined to have a brighter future than the one in which he feels his dad is going to provide him. He goes about this by going against what his entire family has told him. Throughout the last two paragraphs, William Faulkner used a hopeful tone to emphasize that Sartoris escaped misery once he decided to go against his family’s dynamic.
Sartoris hopes to gain a brighter future than what Abner Snopes, who is Sartoris’ father, portrays. Abner shows no emotion towards his family. Instead, he only shows emotions towards society and basically everything, except his family. After being deported from their country, the family sits around a campfire built by Abner. Abner had to deal with
two types of fire: one fire was for his family and the other for hatred. Faulkner expresses how weak Abner’s love is for his family when Sartoris describes the fire as, “a small fire, neat, niggard almost” (158). The fire is meant to symbolize love because it should keep the family warm and protect them, just as love from a father should do. Abner’s anemic love towards his family is seen in the fire, because it barely comforts the family through the cold night. Sartoris describes this fire as “niggard” which suggests that Abner is holding back his anger. Sartoris felt that his father Abner was holding back and being conservative, just like Abner held back his love for their family. This fire is used to contrast Abner’s fire that he uses to obliterate things he hates. Abner expresses his hatred while describing this fire using the words, “voracious prodigality with material not his own”(158). What was intended through Abner's words, “voracious prodigality”, was that his passion was designated towards destroying things rather than taking care of his family. This does not just instruct that the father had a passionate desire to burn things that he hated, but it also shows that Abner was qualified to make these massive fires. The “niggard” fire showed that Sartoris felt his father was being imprudent towards their family, which Sartoris believed to be worse than negative emotions. Abner wasted all of his emotions on things that were irrelevant to his family. Sartoris also believed that feelings that were good or bad were better than no feelings at all.
The tone shifts to hopeful as a contrast is made between Sartoris’ old life and his new life. After Sartoris is out from under the belt of his father’s setbacks on his potential, Faulkner expressed the hopeful tone in the last two paragraphs and shows this through Sartoris’ actions. His actions symbolize that the future he has in his new life is no longer dim, but is much brighter in comparison to his old life. The actions that changed his morale are strongly seen through his breathing and walking. During the cold nights, Sartoris states that he will enter the woods only, “when breath was strong again” (169). Sartoris is not fully ready to start his new life because he is still recovering from his past. Sartoris is determined to forget his old life, and his “breathing” shows he is overcoming the pain of his old life. The breathing symbolizes Sartoris releasing his past; he breathes clean air to purge the waste of his past. He becomes very hopeful only by thinking of the future and moving on from his old life.
Walking helps Faulkner achieve the hopeful tone as well, although it is different than breathing.
Breathing helps cure the wounds of past experiences, while walking helps Sartoris cope with his new life. After Sartoris woke up from his first night of sleep without his family, he claims to be “a little stiff, but walking would cure… the cold” (169). By stating that it was “cold”, he knew that being on his own in his new life would be tough, but walking would help consume the fear. Literally, he is walking away from his life that was full of pain and facing his new life head on. Each step of the journey, Sartoris gains hope and confidence about battling his fears. Sartoris’ hopefulness is shown when the narrator says that Sartoris “did not look back” (169). The placement of this sentence is to show that Sartoris has shed past his old life and has moved
on.
Another way the tone is shifted to hopeful is with the use of a symbolic setting. Sartoris has run away from his old life and is now deciding what he wants to do with his new life. Sartoris is seen, “sitting on the crest of a hill” (169), after leaving his family. It is very important that this scene takes place after he leaves his family, because it proves that all Sartoris needed to do to change his future was to walk away from the constant downgrading by his father. Sartoris is seen on a “hill”, which makes the world around him very visible. This gives Sartoris an outlook of all his possible options in his new life. This has a hopeful affect on him. Another setting that was used to help with the tonal shift was from night to day. The transition is clear when Sartoris says, “it would be dawn and then sunup after awhile and he would be hungry” (169). A whole night has passed of his new life and he is becoming more hopeful. The word “dawn” and “sunup” were used to add the hopeful diction. The word “sunup” symbolizes a new beginning because when sun rays hit someone, the person becomes warm. The contrast between the warm feeling that Sartoris was then feeling, and the cold and hopeless nights is a way of showing his progress. Faulkner also adds that Sartoris was “hungry”, which symbolizes that his body is pure from the misery of his old life. Sartoris became eager to take on his new life and was being replenished with hope.
To prove that Sartoris could still have a bright future, Faulkner used a tonal shift and contrasted two very different lifestyles. Sartoris was very miserable and his father was not leading him in the right direction, but, when Sartoris decided to be bold, that is when his life began to change drastically and his future was improved every step of the way.