Barn Burning and “Araby”

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Coming of age: Sarty in “Barn Burning” & the narrator in “Araby” experiences compared
Coming of age is an important theme learnt from Sarty in “Barn Burning” when he realizes that he must choose between good and wrong in spite of his chaotic family background of unending violence mingled in their culture. Sarty’s worldview is that violence forms an integral but of manhood which he derives out of his father beating him. What Sarty does at the end to fulfill his destiny is running away from the family by stopping to adhere to the traditions. Hence, to the family he is an outcast but to himself e is a free man to start all over again. On the other hand, the Araby narrator picks up the theme in a nonviolent environment but love filled one. The narrator begins the story at the moment a young boy crushes on a girl. His love for the girl finally makes him leave his home town and learn the world differently. This paper will, therefore, utilize the theme coming of age to compare the experiences of Sarty in “Barn Burning” and that of the narrator in “Araby.”
Both stories present characters that are originally moral, uncorrupt, and naïve. As from Sarty, it is revealed that this ten-year-old boy, though in the father’s attempt to train him which is actually corrupting his influence, he still retains some sense of justice. The de Spain house was one thing that brought him the peace that he couldn’t verbalize, but his latter r…