What can we learn about ourselves from william faulkner, when in his story "Barn Burning" colonel sartoris attempts over and over to justify his father terrible behavior?
We can learn that the son wants peace in the family as well as his father's acceptance that he is willing to deffend his very flawed father. Sarty does not know his father's past and clings to the idea that his father is a kind of war hero. This lack of this knowledge allows him to harbor respect for his father. Perhaps he knows in his heart that his father was in fact a nast thief and a reckless man. Sarty, however, would rather live in an illusion: denial is often much easier than reality.
