Growing Up With Fire: Coming

Growing Up With Fire:

Coming of Age in "Barn Burning"

Truth is word we like to throw around sometimes. It can be a heavy weight or a shining beacon of light depending on how we choose to deal with it. William Faulkner's short story, "Barn Burning," illustrates how truth can save a life when one is brave enough to reach out for something better. Sarty is faced with a puzzling father and the truth that he attempts to instill in Sarty about life in general. Sarty discovers his own version of the truth as he discovers his own feelings apart from his father's. He comes to see the futility and foolishness of his father's actions. He realizes that while he burns barns, he also burns the family's future. "Barn Burning" is a coming-of-age story that begins and ends with flames of hope.

Sarty must realize that family is not always everything. In doing so, he learns to accept himself as an individual independent from his father. While his father has been there for him most of his life, we can honesty say that he has not been the best role model for Sarty. That he realizes this about his father is commendable. It also demonstrates that he is becoming a man. Unfortunately, he learns his lessons about life the old-fashioned way -- from the school of hard knocks, one could say. He must experience the anguish and angst of the family to appreciate what it means. His family suffers because Abner's outrageous behavior. Sarty, an impressionable young man, is especially impacted by his father's actions, especially his anger. Abner is living a defeatist attitude because he does not think the family can live any different. He is resigned to the notion that there is no way out of these awful circumstances. At first, Sarty might feel some self-doubt because his father is his only role model. We might not be surprised if Sarty grew up to be just like his father. However, Sarty begins to look at things from his own perspective and what he sees is nothing that Abner would expect. This is fascinating, considering Sarty's surroundings. Instead of allowing himself to be governed by passions, Sarty learned to control his temper. We see this when we read that fire speaks to Abner and it was the "one weapon for the preservation of integrity, else breath were not worth the breathing, and hence to be regarded with respect and used with discretion" (Faulkner 476). Sarty decides not to be this way because he sees the results it brings about.

Sarty realizes at the end of the story that his father saw things from a different point-of-view and there was little he, or anyone could do to change his mind. Abner was a grown man and he was convinced about many things is life regardless if they were true. When Sarty thinks, "If I had said they wanted only truth, justice, he would have hit me again'" (477), we know that Sarty understands the possibilities of his future lie with him and not his father. We see a change in Sarty when he begins to responds to his father's anger with something other than fear. It takes courage to realize that the head of the household is actually doing everything he can to destroy that household and Sarty "divined the true reason" (Faulkner 476) of Abner's behavior as if it spoke to "some deep mainspring of his father's being, as the element of steel or of powder spoke to other men, as the one weapon for the preservation of integrity, else breath were not worth breathing, and hence to be regarded with respect and used with discretion" (Faulkner 476). This is the moment that Sarty begins to look as his father as just another man. When he changes this perspective, he can see that man, and the destruction he has caused, more clearly. Suddenly, Abner seems to be just as bad as Sarty believes him to be. This moment reveals a mature man making a decision he knows will affect the rest of his life. This decision, he realizes holds the key to his future and his happiness.

Sarty's family is constantly on the move and, as a result, never has a real sense of home. Sarty realizes that his family's circumstances are the direct result of his father's actions and he slowly begins to realize that, as a man, he does not to life the kind of life his father did. However, if he decides to life a life different from that of his father, he knows he must break away from his family altogether. This will do two things for Sarty. It will set him free and it will end the destruction in his life. Sarty also knows that the sooner he makes his move toward a better life, the closer he will be to these things.

Things change for Sarty on the de Spain plantation. Abner could see nothing good about the plantation. Sarty, however, saw hope along with his father behaving foolishly. In a moment of frustration, Abner rubs dirt on the carpet -- a deed which requires Sarty's sisters the better part of a day cleaning. We understand how Abner tends to see the negative in things when he tells Sarty that the plantation was painted with "nigger sweat" (479). This is the source of his anger. Fire becomes the weapon of choice for Abner. It is how he chooses to express his anger toward life in general. He does not feel inclined to try to make things better for his family. Fire is destructive in more than one way, however. While he does not realize it, Abner is also destroying his family with every time he chooses to burn another barn. He burns the chances of anything stable in their lives to ashes. The fire and the anger confuse Sarty. He cannot relate to his father. At the de Spain's plantation Sarty thinks:

People whose lives are a part of this peace and dignity are behind 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" (478).

Sarty sees that the real damage lives within his father. He hopes that maybe he will feel what Sarty does and maybe it "will even change him not from what maybe he couldn't help but be" (478). Sarty realizes that his hopes are useless as he comprehends the scope of his father's anger. The difference between these two men -- and what ultimately shapes many people in this world - is the sense of hope. Sarty had a hope for his future and he cold see it even if it remained unclear to him. He felt it when they arrived at the plantation when he saw all of the good things within that household. He also had the ability to see the good in things even if that good did not seem to belong to him in particular. At the plantation, he feels a "surge of peace and joy whose reason he could not have thought in to words" (478). His is still young enough at this point not to be hardened to life. As a result, his hope saves his life or, at least, his future, anyway.