William Faulkner (1897 "1962) was an American novelist who was born in New Albany, Mississippi. He was regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century; Faulkner's novels examine the effects of the dissolution of traditional values and authority on all levels of Southern society. His sentences are long and hypnotic; sometimes he withholds important details or refers to people or events that the reader will not learn about until much later. William Faulkner was passionate and committed to his work he would have done anything to complete a story, " If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate."" (Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, 1959) He was the master of rhetorical, and highly symbolic writing style that was eventually rewarded with the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The story "Barn burning- by William Faulkner, at a glance appears to concentrate mainly on the character of the young boy Colonel Sartoris Snopes (Sarty) and his inner conflict. Pressured by his father (Abner Snopes) to lie in court to protect his father, he feels as if he is "being pulled two ways like two teams of horses.""(Faulkner 381) Unlike his father he does not believe that loyalty to blood (family) is greater than peace and justice. Sarty is very different from the characters of his father and older brother. Perhaps because of his youth, he does not experience the same hatred and jealousy of money, power, and class that his father and brother appear to share.
Sarty, however, still young and with no other place to go does lie for his father, taking his father's advice and sticking to his own blood. As much as he despises his father's actions he still cares about his father, always living in the hope that his father will change his ways. Unlike his father and brother, Sarty wants nothing more than to be part of the "peace and dignity-(Faulkner 377) that he feels the Major de Spain has because of his house, because it represents money, power, and class.
