In William Faulkner's story, "Barn Burning", the protagonist is a young boy who struggles with the relationship he has with his father and his own conscience. Sarty is a young man, developing into an adult while dealing with the many crude actions and ways of Abner, his father. Furthermore this essay describes Sarty's father's dark character, Sarty's family life, and his desire to break away from the oppressive conditions of his family life
             The theme of Faulkner's "Barn Burning" is Sarty Snopes's desire to break away from his family and his tyrannical father. The narrator describes Sarty's father, Abner as such: "There was something about his wolf-like independence and even courage when the advantage was at least neutral which impressed strangers, as if they got his latent ravening ferocity not so much a sense of dependability as a feeling that his ferocious conviction in the rightness of his own actions would be of advantage to all whose interest lies with his" (25). Abner can be best described as a brutal and a frightening man who instills fear into whomever he seems to be close to. He is violent towards his son and towards anyone who questions him or his authority. Abner is wholly tyrannical, and he wants his son to help him with his misdeeds. The reason why Abner takes his younger son Sarty along with him everywhere he goes is because he wants his son to be like him when he grows up.
             Furthermore, Sarty's family life was no darker than his father's personality. Even though slavery wasn't a case here, they had to live by share cropping. They were poor, and most of the times they ended up moving before the time for harvesting came. Sarty's family was mentally imprisoned by his father. They had to live the way his Abner wanted to, and they had no freedom. Even his mother, she was so powerless that she couldn't help her own son when he gets injured. Sarty and his sisters disliked moving bec...