According to psychologists, moral development occurs in stages, from childhood to maturity. For children, moral decisions are often based on avoiding punishment or receiving reward from parents, teachers, and other authority figures. Sarty Snopes is initially prepared to swear his father is innocent of arson charges in a court of law, when FaulknerÆs Barn Burning opens. Sarty knows his father is guilty, but he views the judge as a kindly man and hopes he does not have to testify. At this stage in SartyÆs moral development, his decisions are based on family emotions and ties. He views the judge as kindly but an ôenemyö, because the judge is a threat to his father. At this stage, SartyÆs moral reasoning is based on pleasing his father but by the end of Barn Burning he will develop past this stage of morality and make decisions based on his own feelings of right and wrong.
Sarty lives in squalor, with an aggressive and hostile father who burns things in anger. The family has no friends and no roots to community because of this. All Sarty has as a role model and confidant is his abusive father, an embittered sharecropper. Because Abner is all Sarty has, Sarty makes every effort to please him, even when he believes his fatherÆs actions are wrong. Threats of abandonment also make Sarty willing to forego his own moral code to please his father. When Abner notices SartyÆs reluctance to testify, he tells him ôYou got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ainÆt going to have any blood to stick to youö (Faulkner 219).
Abner puts Sarty in a terrible moral dilemma for
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