Why Is Sartoris Snopes Described As A Bildungsroman

“He ain’t done it! (175)” Sarty blurts, defending his father before he even has to give a defense. It had been normal for Colonel Sartoris Snopes to give this type of defense, even if he had to lie. He only did this because his father, Abner Snopes, was a cold-hearted pyromaniac with a violent temper. In William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”, the protagonist, Colonel Sartoris Snopes, also known as Sarty, undergoes a bildungsroman where, through the process of internal conflict, he turns away from submission to his violent father to a stage of maturation where he resists his father’s will. Sartoris Snopes had been a prisoner to the “old fierce pull of blood (162)” that his father had on him. In the beginning, Sarty thinks, “He aims for me to

‘Maybe he’s done satisfied now, now that he has...’” Faulkner writes on page 165, which begins Sarty’s inner struggle to meet maturation, as he knows that his father is doing the wrong thing. When Sartoris Snopes was called by his father while he was sleeping, he thinks to himself, "If I had said they wanted only truth, justice, he would have hit me again." (167) Sarty knew that his father was doing the wrong thing and he wanted to speak up because he says "if I had said", which shows that he did want to say it. However, because Colonel Sartoris Snopes thinks "he would have hit me again", it can be inferred that the only thing that stopped him from saying this was his fear of his father. As Sartoris enters a new milieu where his father will be sharecropping, he becomes exultant that few people are living there that his father could possibly harm, and in his exuberance, Sarty ruminates," They are safe from him. People whose lives are a part of this peace and dignity are beyond his touch, he no more to them than a buzzing wasp: capable of stinging for a little moment but that's all; the spell of this peace and dignity rendering even the barns and stable and cribs which belong to it impervious to the puny flames he might contrive ... " While Sarty struggles with the fact that his father could burn anything in an implacable fit of rage, he is eased that few people live where he will live. Furthermore, Sarty belittles the power of his father by

When Abner is on trial to have the fee decreased for the scraped rug, Sarty accidentally blurts that "he ain't burnt", which makes the Justice ask if the rug is burnt. Abner tells Sarty to "go back to the wagon", but he did not. Sarty has defied his father, which shows how he is beginning to mature. Furthermore, it shows that he is not afraid of his father's violence; he only wants what is right. Ultimately, when Abner was about to burn the barn where he lived, after struggling to escape the detainment placed on him by his mother by order of his father, Sarty ran to tell Major de Spain that the barn was about to be burnt, and de Spain shot Abner before he burnt the barn. As shown, Sarty finally stops his father from destroying another barn, and it shows how Sartoris is completely mature. Furthermore, it shows that Sarty Snopes fought to stand up for the truth, even when the detainment was under the harsh command of his