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How Is Sarty Portrayed In Barn Burning

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Overcoming Sarty’s Self-Denial Sarty Snopes is a young, impressionable boy in William Faulkner’s Barn Burning, who is part of a poor sharecropping family traveling around from place to place to find work. Life for Sarty is hard, because his father is a man constantly angered at the injustice shown to sharecroppers. The plantation owners who hire the sharecroppers almost always get the better end of the deal and treat the sharecroppers like slaves to a point. Sarty’s father, Abner, is frequently affronted at the unjust treatment shown to them and takes his revenge by burning the plantation owner’s barns. Sarty doesn’t feel the same way his father does about the family’s oppression, but is still young enough that he can’t speak up for himself …show more content…

He starts fighting blindly without even thinking about his reasons or any consequences associated with actions. During the fight, Sarty “[feels] no blow, [feels] no shock when his head [strikes] the earth, scrabbling up and leaping again . . . [tastes] no blood” (Faulkner 2). Sarty has just been in a fight over his father’s honor, and is so overcome with emotion that he has no feeling of anything except aggression. He has no feeling of pain in this moment because he is defending his father’s honor. But this also shows that Sarty is quarreling only because of his father and not because of what he believes in. Sarty knows it is bad to burn barns, and inwardly, Sarty probably knows his father is wrong. Nevertheless, Sarty brawls because Abner is his father, and he needs to defend him along with his family. Sarty experiences the first of many conflicts within himself to defend his father or side with truth and …show more content…

He uses his experiences to formulate his own opinions, his own morals, and his own values. He goes through trials against Abner, injustice from the sharecropper owners, and vigilante justice by Abner in the form of barn burnings. Seeing how truth and justice work and how his family react to that truth and justice show Sarty what is really important and what is right and wrong. From one experience to the next, Sarty discovers himself and his true values. As the story progresses, it is evident that Sarty matures through his knowledge and experience with truth and justice along with his family life and

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