What do you consider loyalty? Who would you give your loyalty to family? Or the law? Loyalty could be defined in many ways. Loyalty mean to me the nature of being loyal to someone. But, in this case Sarty have to decide if being loyal to his family or loyal to the law is more important. As we may all know that a father and son relationship is supposed to have the tightest bond that consist of LOYALTY? In “Barn Burning” Sarty is broken between his loyalty to his family and an inner more sense of justice.
At the beginning of the story it starts off with loyalty. Sarty and Abner Snopes are at a country store where they find themselves at a hearing. Sarty shows an excellent display of loyalty to his family when the judge talks to him. “I reckon anybody named for Colonel Sartoris in this country can't help but tell the truth, can they?" When the Justice forced Sarty to tell the truth he sees the Justice as an enemy (Faulkner 1).
…show more content…
Harris' barn. Immediately, Sarty is convinced that the people in the court are his father’s enemies, therefore they are his enemies. He boldly sets himself with a loyalty to blood, as in opposition to the justice of the court ". . . our enemy he thought in that despair; ourn! Mine and hisn both! He's my father (1)!" Young Sarty Snopes describes his own inner conflict as “the being pulled two ways like between two teams of horses (7).” On one side is “the old fierce pull of blood” — family loyalty (). Truth and justice is on the other. "You're getting to be a man (3).” Sarty is starting to acknowledge his father’s wrong doing, but his father wanted him to understand that he cannot go telling what is actually going on. The temptation of blood-relationship is strong, but Sarty is old enough to start realizing that what his father does is