William Faulkner's Barn Burning

William Faulkner's " Barn Burning " William Faulkner's "Barn Burning" presents a dichotomy of thought. On one hand, it is a heroic tragedy about Sarty Snopes growing into awareness and morality. On the other, it is a story describing a moribund southern aristocracy built on a tainted ante-bellum foundation of slavery and decaying on a post-war economic oppression of white agrarians. Sarty rightfully looks at this old order of life as a symbol of hope. However, to …

…collides with his disappointment and suppressed dislike of his own father. He tends to hide his feelings by denying the facts, "our Enemy he though in that despair; ourn! mine and hisn both! He's my Father!" and "The boy said nothing. Enemy! Enemy! he thought; for a moment he could not even see, could not see that the Justice's face was kindly." The story's emotional turns are clearly defined by Sarty's thoughts and Abner's actions.