Short Story: Barn Burning

Overview
William Faulkner’s 1939 short story Barn Burning follows young Colonel Sartoris “Sarty” Snopes as he confronts a painful choice between loyalty to his family and allegiance to a broader sense of justice. Set in the post–Civil War rural South amid tenant farming and rigid class hierarchies, the narrative tracks Sarty’s awakening conscience under the sway of his embittered father, Abner Snopes, a man who answers humiliation with sabotage and fire.

Opening in the makeshift court
The story opens in a country store that doubles as a justice court, where Abner stands accused of setting fire to a neighbor’s barn. Sarty, hungry and small, is called to testify. He understands that truth could condemn his father, yet he is bound by the demand of blood: “You got to learn to stick to your own blood.” The case is dismissed for lack of proof, but the justice orders the Snopes family to leave the county. That night, Abner strikes Sarty for nearly telling the truth and drills into him the creed of family loyalty. The family, Abner, his wife, their sons, two daughters, and an aunt, packs its meager belongings and heads to a new tenant farm.

Arrival at de Spain’s plantation
Abner brings his resentment to Major de Spain’s grand house. He deliberately tracks horse manure across the polished floor and, after being confronted, smears it into an expensive white rug. The rug is returned to the Snopes cabin with orders to clean it; Abner commands his wife and daughters to scrub it with harsh lye and a stone, ruining it further. When the damaged rug is brought back, de Spain levies a $20 penalty against Abner’s share of the crop, a catastrophic sum for a tenant.

Courts and escalation
Abner refuses the loss and takes the dispute to another justice of the peace. Faulkner’s scene juxtaposes the letter of the law with rural power: the justice reduces the fee to $10, acknowledging de Spain’s property while granting Abner a narrow victory. To Abner, even $10 is an affront. Fire becomes the old weapon again, the means by which he equalizes status and answers insult. Sarty senses what is coming when his father tells him to fetch the oil. His mother tries to restrain him, fearing what Abner will do and what Sarty might do to stop it. The boy breaks free in a rush of fear and resolve.

Climax at the barn
Sarty runs to the big house to warn de Spain that his barn is in danger. He hears the rapid clatter of hooves as de Spain mounts and rides toward the outbuildings. From the dark road, the boy hears gunshots, two reports cracking the night. He sees no flames licking the sky. The immediate outcome remains indirect and grimly clear: Abner’s intent meets a swift, armed response. Whether the barn burns or not is less certain than the sense that the cycle has reached its breaking point.

Aftermath and Sarty’s turn
Sarty does not return to his family. At dawn he moves into open country, cold, hungry, and unmoored, but with a new inner compass. The cadence of his name, borrowed from a Confederate hero, no longer binds him to Abner’s code. He chooses a different inheritance, an allegiance to fairness that stands outside the small courts and petty wars his father fought. The boy walks on toward the woods and hills, seeing the morning star and the first light, a spare and unsentimental image of a child stepping out of blood loyalty into a lonely, hard-won moral adulthood.