Barn on Fire by William FaulknerWilliam Faulkner, recognized as one of the greatest writers of all time, once gave a speech while accepting the Nobel Prize for Writing in which he stated that a great piece of writing should contain the truths of the heart and the conflicts that arise over these truths. These truths were love, honor, mercy, pride, compassion and sacrifice. Indeed, it would be difficult to argue that a story without these truths would even be considered a good story, let alone a great story. So the question that is raised is whether Faulkner uses his heart truths to craft his story “Barn Burning.” Clearly the answer to this question is yes; his use of heart truths is prevalent throughout the story and to illustrate this to the reader we will focus on two of them, love and pride. There are many points in the story where love clearly comes into conflict with morality, kinship, and even other truths of the heart. The first of these, and probably the most dramatic, is found in the first paragraphs of the story. A young boy named Sarty, son of Abner Snopes, the barn burner of the story, is called to the stand to testify about his father's behavior. As he goes to the booth, the reader understands what the boy is thinking and it is very clear that he is strongly aligned with his father or his "blood relatives". As he approaches the bench, Sarty has many thoughts running through his head about how the judge is the enemy "our enemy, he thought in that desperation; ours! Mine and his both! He is my father!" (Faulkner 161) It is clear that his father's love hinders his moral thoughts because he is almost willing to lie for his father. However Sarty almost confesses that... halfway through the paper... to get in, she tells him to "get out of the way" (Faulkner 166) as she enters the house and traces his horse manure all over their very expensive carpet. Then, when the landlady tells him to leave, he quickly obeys her after turning on his heel to grind up even more fecal matter. As he leaves, he once again makes a derogatory remark to the butler. This is probably where Abner's motivation becomes clearest. He feels superior only to black people, in which case it meant that everyone else around him was superior in some way and therefore he felt as if every action they took was a threat to him and damaged his pride in himself, forcing him to take revenge the only way he knew how, burning barns.QuotesFaulkner, William. Barn on fire. Literature A portable anthology. Ed. Janet EGardner, et al. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin, 2004. 161-175