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Comparing Gandhi And Barn Burning

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“Happiness is when what you think what you say and what you do are in harmony”, these words said by Mahatma Gandhi serve to represent the attitude that he adopted in life. This decision to do what he feels is right no matter the consequences is also reflected in Colonel Sartoris Snopes, the protagonist of William Faulkner’s Barn burning. Each decided to do what he felt was morally right, and also to accept the consequences. Although their circumstances are extremely different, Gandhi and Sartorius are similar characters because both were exposed to injustice and in response decided to stand for what they felt was morally right, and in doing so suffered consequences. Gandhi was exposed to discrimination as a young man which served as a spark to ignite the fire of change in his heart. Sartorius also experienced discrimination because of his origins. When he …show more content…

Sartorius was emotionally distraught after informing De Spain about his father's plan to burn his barn. Sarty runs “among the invisible trees, panting, sobbing, "Father! Father!"”(Faulkner 2010). Not only is Sartorius feeling sad about betraying his father, but he must also then go on to live by himself with no family supporting him. Gandhi “was arrested on March 10, 1922, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment”(Nanda 2016). This is just one of many times that Gandhi was arrested for his peaceful resistance. Eventually Gandhi paid the ultimate price for his efforts when “extremist Nathuram Godse, upset at Gandhi’s tolerance of Muslims, knelt before the Mahatma before pulling out a semiautomatic pistol and shooting him three times at point-blank range. ”(Biography.com Editors 2015). The shared goal that both Sarty and Gandhi pursued was at the end of a road fraught with hardship, and both knew before beginning their tasks that they would suffer in order to achieve what they desired. Even still both Sarty

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