Abner and Sarty SnopesThe nature of the relationship between father and son in William Faulkner's Barn Burning is outlined in the first paragraph of the story. In general, a father-son relationship is based on true respect, love, loyalty and admiration. These building blocks were absent in the relationship between Abner and Sarty Snopes. Sarty's loyalty to his father seemed to stem from a long-standing fear of the consequences of not obeying his father's orders. The “nigger” who could blame Abner was nowhere to be found. Was Faulkner inferring from this statement that the individual had been killed? If Abner had so little moral value to destroy a man's property, surely he could destroy a man's life to protect himself from persecution. Sarty knew he “smelled like cheese and more.” He smelled “fierce blood.” His father's blood, the blood of the family name, Snopes. Sarty knew he was also the son of the “barn burner.” A name he heard whistling as they passed boys in town. Sarty fought to defend his father and when he was injured, he seemed to need the blood to stay for a while to remind himself why he stayed with the man. Sarty sometimes considered his father "bloodless" and carved from "tin." Sarty could usually convince himself why his father was like that. The fact that he had to be a horse trader for four years, hiding from the Blue and Gray armies to exist by stealing or "capturing", as he called, horses. Was Sarty going to become a man like his father? It seems that it was fear that may have worried Sarty on several occasions. Young boys typically acquire a desire at some point in their lives to emulate their father's actions, life outlook, and mannerisms. Fathers are examples of how they would like their sons to be. Abner probably thought that was the only way to be. Abner's past was not Sarty's, nor should his future be Sarty's. Because their visions of life and the people who lived there were very different. Abner Snopes viewed Major de Spain's mansion as a symbol of inequality. The fact is that he had too much and Abner had so little. Sarty viewed the vast mansion as a picturesque scene of the "grove of oaks and cedars and flowering trees and shrubs" almost as if it were a repetition of something that occurred to him..