Barn Burning Ethical Dilemmas

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Familial Bonds and Ethical Choices in Barn Burning
In Barn Burning, a 10-year old Sartoris Snopes must choose between sticking to his family and making righteous decisions. His father, Abner Snopes, is a Southern tenant farmer who repeatedly burns down the barns of his landlords, so he and his family never stay in one place for too long. During the course of the story, Sartoris vacillates between loyalty to his father and loyalty to society. Ultimately, Sartoris betrays his father by warning the farm owner that his father will burn his barn, getting his father killed. In his short story Barn Burning, Faulkner uses the various characters and their development to elucidate that a familial bond is a substantial force that is difficult to separate from, but breaking the bond is sometimes crucial in order to do what is right.
The different characters in the story facilitate in …show more content…

Throughout the story, Faulker characterizes Sartoris’s life as filled of “grief and despair.” Sartoris abhors the fact that he must live a nomadic lifestyle due to his father’s crimes. Despite forcing himself to support his father in the trial, Sartoris knows that it is dishonest. After the trial, Sartoris is injured defending his father when another child calls Abner a barn burner. When his mother tries to tend to his wounds, he replies, “Hit don’t hurt. Lemme be” (407). Though he attempts to suppress the feeling, Sartoris knows his father is wrong and wants to feel punished for defending him, in this case physically. The only time we see that Sartoris feels something other than “grief and despair” is when his family arrives at the de Spain mansion: “Hit’s big as a courthouse he thought quietly, with a surge of peace and joy” (409). Sartoris wants to feel safe, and justice is the only thing that seems to make him

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