The choices we must make Sarty Snopes in William Faulkner's “Barn Burning” is a great example of someone who had to choose between two paths. He could stay with his family, his blood, which he knew was wrong, or take the right path but remain alone. At first Sarty tries and wants to stay with his father, but he realizes that his father will never change. Sarty chooses to flee his family forever. His father, Abner, has done so much damage in Sarty's life that he will never go back. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Early in the book we learn that Sarty is watching a trial. "He could not see the table where the judge sat and before which his father and his father's enemy (our enemy he thought in despair; ours! Mine and his both! He is my father!)." (3) At this moment Sarty is on his father's side. In the opening paragraph, we can see that Sarty is still a young boy: “He couldn't see the table.” (3) He's still too young to really understand what's going on. He thinks that since family is blood, he must be on their side no matter what. When he says “our enemy…. mine and his" (3) wants to show that at this moment Sarty considers his father's enemies also his enemies because they are part of the family. Sarty starts talking about how he and his family jump from place to place going wherever he wants his father. “He never knew where they were going. None of them ever did or asked him... His father had probably already organized a harvest on another farm before him... Again he once had to stop. He (the father) always has. (7) We can see Sarty knowing that what his father is doing is wrong. He knows that wherever they go, his father will burn down the owner's barn before they leave. “before…” (7) here he hesitates, not wanting to say it before burning down a barn This suggests that Sarty doesn't really want to believe the kind of man his father is and it hurts him to say what his father does and the His family decided to find a place to sleep for the night while they went to another house. There are many examples that show how the Snopes family acts which encourages Sarty to want to leave his family. “The nights were still cool and they had a fire against, of a railing lifted from a nearby fence and cut into pieces a small fire.” (7) Instead of picking up fallen branches from trees, they choose to damage someone else's property by using a railing to start a fire. The next line goes into more detail to describe and show Abner's character. “Small, clean, almost stingy fire, a cunning fire: such fires were his father's habit” (7) this shows the character of Abner, who must always have his own way and not worry about anyone around him. Even though it was a cold night, Abner only lights a small fire, he refuses to light a large fire. This could be because when Abner was hiding during the war he would always light small fires so that no one would find him and since he is a character set in his own way and refuses to change he continues to light small fires. Next “Older, the boy might have noticed this and wondered why not a big one” (7) This shows that once again Sarty is questioning his father's judgment, he wants to know why his father won't light a bigger fire especially for his family since he is burning someone else's property. Later that night Abner hits Sarty. “You were trying to tell him. You would have told him. He didn't answer. His father is.