Sarty CharacterEdit
Sarty Snopes is the central figure in William Faulkner’s short story Barn Burning, and a pivotal presence in the broader Faulknerian examination of Southern life. Set in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, the narrative follows a young boy as he negotiates a volatile equation of loyalty, truth-telling, and personal conscience within a family culture built on grievance and a stark, sometimes violent, code of honor. Read from a conservative perspective on tradition and social order, Sarty’s arc is often framed as a lucid example of personal responsibility—the moment when a young person must choose between blind allegiance to family and fidelity to the law, private property, and basic fairness. The story measures how far inherited loyalties can carry a person before moral judgment and social norms demand a different course.
Barn Burning situates Sarty within a family system headed by Abner Snopes, a man who wields grievance as a driver of action and who treats violence as a tool of power. The boy’s early world is one in which family loyalty can blur the lines between right and wrong, danger and safety, and the personal code of a father and the common-law requirements of a community. In this sense, Sarty’s development has been read as a cautionary tale about the risks of a culture where personal insult and perceived slights are met with retaliatory acts against property, rather than with measured, lawful responses. The setting—rural, stratified, and embedded in the sharecropping economy of the postbellum South—provides the backdrop for questions about property rights, social order, and the limits of filial obedience. For readers and scholars, the work sits at the intersection of Yoknapatawpha County lore and a broader discussion of private responsibility within a hierarchical society.
Background
Setting and social order
Barn Burning unfolds in a world where landowners and tenant families interact through a rough hierarchy, with property as a visible stake in a larger social contract. The story’s tension arises when Abner Snopes, a man who often argues that respect for one’s dignity requires asserting himself in tangible ways, pushes against the boundaries of other people’s property and security. Sarty’s sense of belonging and duty is taught to him through the rhythms of daily life, discipline, and the unspoken expectation that the family’s honor demands a certain obedience. The narrative thus becomes a study in how a community defines right conduct, what constitutes legitimate grievance, and how private loyalty can either uphold or undermine public order. For readers who focus on the governance of society, the Alders and the de Spains (as landowners in Faulkner’s world) provide foil to the Snopes’ struggles, and the story’s moral core emerges from how Sarty responds to these pressures. See also Property rights and Code of honor.
The Snopes family in Faulkner’s canon
Sarty is part of the larger Snopes family, a line that Faulkner uses to explore questions of class, ambition, and social mobility within the Southern landscape. Abner Snopes, the father, embodies a combative, self-assertive stance that challenges ordinary notions of deference to property and order. The boy’s reactions to his father’s actions—first fear, then moral reckoning—anchor his development as a figure of moral seriousness within a world that prizes loyalty, even under coercive or unlawful behavior. The Snopes family and its trajectory intersect with Faulkner’s broader exploration of the region, including the later stages of the Snopes cycle in works such as The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion. See Abner Snopes and The Snopes trilogy.
Characterization
Sarty’s moral development
From the outset, Sarty is depicted as sensitive to the social cues around him and aware of the consequences of dishonesty or complicity. His internal tension intensifies as he witnesses his father’s use of intimidation and his own sense of truth-telling conflicts with the family code. The turning point of the story is his decision to speak plainly about his father’s actions, even at great personal cost. This moment crystallizes a broader argument often advanced by conservative readers: the primacy of truth and the rule of law over mere family loyalty when those loyalties threaten innocent people or subvert justice.
Interactions with authority and property
Sarty’s encounters with authority figures—whether in the courtroom or in the social sphere of the community—highlight a core conservative concern: while authority exists to maintain order and protect property, it can be imperfect and sometimes corrupted by power. Sarty’s choice to acknowledge the truth places him in conflict with his father’s code while aligning him with the community’s expectations of fair dealing and lawful behavior. The narrative thereby explores the legitimacy of private property as a basic pillar of social stability, even as it acknowledges the complexities of a system in which power can be wielded violently.
Themes and motifs
Honor, law, and property
A central theme is the tension between honor as a personal, family-driven code and the public, universal demands of the law and private property. Sarty’s eventual alignment with truth-telling and legal process—despite the unbearable strain on his family—illustrates the conservative view that enduring social order rests on more than kinship bonds; it rests on a shared commitment to justice and right conduct.
Fire as symbol
The motif of fire—burning barns as acts of defiance against perceived grievance—embodies a clash between individual grievance and community safety. The destructive impulse is a call to protect the order of civil life; for readers attuned to concerns about the rule of law, the arson acts serve as a counterweight to the stability that private property and predictable legal norms provide.
Conscience and maturation
Sarty’s growth into moral agency—recognizing that loyalty to family should not override truthful testimony and the responsibilities of citizenship—frames the story as a Bildungsgeschichte (coming-of-age narrative) within a harsh social order. See Bildungsroman.
Controversies and debates
Racism, class, and the social frame
Critics have long debated how Faulkner’s portrayal of a white sharecropping world interacts with race and hierarchy in the South. Some readings argue that Barn Burning, while focused on a boy’s moral awakening, is limited in addressing the systemic exploitation faced by black communities in the same social space. From a conservative perspective that emphasizes social order and personal responsibility, the story can be read as a focused examination of a moral choice within a particular social moment, rather than a blueprint for addressing all dimensions of injustice. Supporters of this view contend that Faulkner’s broader body of work, including the Snopes trilogy, uses a composite of social pressures to illuminate character rather than to cement a single political position. Critics who emphasize race and caste argue that the work sometimes leaves the experiences of black characters in the background, a point that invites careful, contextual reading rather than blanket dismissal. In any case, the controversy centers on how to read the text’s treatment of power, property, and social order in a sensitive era. Woke critiques of the story are often dismissed by these readers as oversimplifications that project modern anxieties onto a historical fiction setting.
The moral center and cultural impact
Another debate concerns whether Sarty’s decision represents a triumph of moral clarity or a costly misstep that contributes to the erosion of family bonds. From a traditionalist vantage, the value rests in the clear assertion of moral responsibility and the defense of societal norms against acts of violence that disrupt the community’s functioning. Critics who focus on Faulkner’s ambivalence may argue that the text deliberately blurs the line between justice and vengeance. Proponents of the conservative reading tend to emphasize the story’s emphasis on lawfulness and the dangers of legitimizing vigilantism, arguing that Sarty’s stance is a principled stand for protecting the weak from coercive abuse, even at personal cost. In either case, the debates highlight how a compact, high-stakes moral drama can provoke substantial discussion about the foundations of social order. See Justice and Property rights.
Reception and legacy
Sarty Snopes remains a touchstone in discussions of Faulkner’s artistry and in the broader conversation about coming-of-age narratives set against a backdrop of social conflict. The character’s struggle embodies questions about where responsibility lies when family loyalty clashes with the public good, and his arc is frequently cited in teaching Faulkner as an entry point to his exploration of Southern life and moral philosophy. The story’s enduring relevance is reinforced by its place in the Yoknapatawpha corpus and by the way it situates the individual conscience within a framework of property, law, and social order.