Nevertheless, through this latent emotional (and physical) rebellion, what the boy comes through is the discovery of evil, embodied by the patriarchal figure whose destructive will seems to control everyone and everything. This desperate situation tears the boy in two because he doesn't seem able to chose between "the old fierce of blood" ( the fidelity to his father) and his thrust towards justice and truth.

We will see that "Barn Burning" is actually the story of an initiation that will lead to the boy's final refusal to help and support his father. By denouncing this one, Sarty will claim his own individuality and will gain his independence and freedom.

The opposition of sharecropper (Mr Snopes) and aristocrat (Mr de Spain) suggests social implications. Several elements refer to this possibility. The father points out that de Spain's house is built with "nigger

At the end, he refuses to look back. But passages in the text make clear that some years later, he will do it and will come to understand why he did what he did. Thus, we notice that Sarty does not possess enough maturity. For instance, he doesn't know the exact nature of his father's service. The narrator has this information and gives it to the reader in different places: "walking a little...a stolen horse thirty years ago" p.164. He thinks that his father fought bravely in the Civil war, but we are told that Mr Snopes had gone to that war "a private, admitting the authority of no man...for booty" (p.181).

The son uses satanic images to describe his nightmarish vision of his father. For instance, as they go up the drive, Sarty follows his father: traditionally, the devil casts no shadow and Mr Snopes' figure appears to the child as having "that impervious quality of something cut ruthlessly from tin, depthless, as though sidewise to the sun it would cast no shadow" (p.168). Fire, the element of the devil, is the weapon for the preservation of his superiority. He cannot accept no order beyond his own. In the text, there are several references to Heaven and Hell (the constant evocation of the fire with the "scarlet devils" on the cans, p.162, "Damnation!", p.163, "in the red haze", p.164, "the light...flaring up", p.173). In the satanic myth, Lucifer asserts his will against the divine order and he is cast out of heaven. The angels who fall with Lucifer become extensions of his will.

Abner unjustly accuses Sarty of intending to betray him, but doing so, he recognises that his son is moving out of childhood, developing a mind and will of his own and Sarty shows that he is no longer blindly loyal. He leaves the world of innocence to enter with his father the world of sin; the allusions to the smell (p.162) inaugurates this passage. Whereas the other characters are deprived of their identities, Sarty is in search of his.

The physical description we are given about the father is always presented through the eyes of his son. The father really seems to be a kind of ghost which would come in no matter the place ("his father's foot were gone", "the silhouette was standing over him" (p.172). Recurrent images dominate his description: first, blackness and rigidity, "in his black Sunday coat" (p.163), "the stiff black coat" (p.164), "a shape black" (p.166),"the stiff black back" (p.168), the stiff and implacable limp" (p.170), the stiff foot (p.172 and 179).

By aligning himself with de Spain, the boys destroys his father and gain his freedom. At the end of the story, he moves into the future without looking back, responding, independent, and alone, to the call of the "rapid and urgent beating of the urgent and quiring heart of the late spring night" (p.181). The image suggests a feeling of unity with the world of nature, a sense of wholeness as if the boy had found himself. The description of nature contrasts sharply with the threatening, rigid, metallic portrait of the father as a living force. The contrast clearly shows that Sarty' s struggle is against the repressive force his father represents.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Barn Burning, Ms Snopes, God Abner, Abner Snopes, Heaven Hell, De Spain's, Snopes Sarty, Spain Sarty, de spain, barn burning, de spain's, cold violence, truth justice, abner snopes, rest mankind, fierce blood, gain freedom, warning de spain, own individuality, Oh God,
Approximate Word count = 2173
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)