In “Barn Burning” Faulkner writes about the relationship between a father and his son in both the hereditary and the spiritual sense. Sarty early in the story respects his father because of his father’s service in the military and the clannish code found in southern families without regard to social status. The young boy was not really aware of his father’s good or bad qualities or of the complexities of his father’s behavior. He was aware that his father was facing a court.

He was not yet openly aware of the way he really felt about his father’s activities and the fact tha

In reality Sarty had a sense of right and wrong and having to lie for his father places him in great conflict. He was far too young to understand his father and the complexities of the moral choice he must make. In breaking the code, Sarty is freed from the nightmare to which he has been subjected.

Sarty’s conduct surprises the reader because he did not follow the mores of the time, but instead exercised his self-reliant spirit that frequently conflicts with blood ties. Sarty saw the people who were beyond his touch. They lived in the big houses and had barns and stables and cribs. He did not resent the fact that his family might always be sharecroppers and never really own anything. His father was a victim of this society, which robbed him of his pride and pushed him to action much like clanism.

Sarty in the beginning loves his father very much and his challenge to paternal authority is more perceived than real and he would not have betrayed his father in court. Sarty viewed the town as their “enemy.” His father is unable to understand this love that transcends family tie

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