Abner and Sarty Snopes The nature of the relationship between father and son in Barn Burning by William Faulkner is shown in the first paragraph of the story. In general, a father-son relationship should be built on genuine respect, love, loyalty and admiration. These building blocks were absent in the Abner and Sarty Snope report. Sarty's loyalty to his father seemed to stem from a long-standing fear of the consequences of failing to obey his father's commands. The "nigger" who could blame Abner could not be found. Was Faulkner inferring from this statement that the individual had been killed? If Abner had so little moral worth that he would destroy a man's property, surely to protect himself from persecution he might destroy a man's life. Sarty smelled like "cheese, and more." He smelled the "fierce pull of blood." His father's blood, the blood of his last name, Snopes. Sarty knew he was also the son of the "barn burner". A name he heard hissing as they passed the boys of the city. Sarty fought to defend his father, and when injured, he seemed to need the blood to stay for a while to remember why he stayed with that man. Sarty sometimes considered his father "bloodless" and cut from "tin". Sarty could usually convince himself why his father was the way he was. The fact that he had to be a horse trader for four years hiding from the blue and gray armies to survive by stealing or "capturing", as he called it, horses. Would Sarty become a man like his father? It seems to be the fear that Sarty may have worried about many times. Boys usually acquire the desire, at some point in their lives, to simulate their fathers' actions, life perspectives, and mannerisms. Fathers are examples of what they would like their children to be like. Abner probably thought it was the only way to be. Abner's past was not Sarty's, nor would his future be Sarty's. Because their views on life and the people in it were very different. Abner Snopes considered Major de Spain's mansion a symbol of inequality. The fact is, he had too much and Abner had so little. Sarty looked at 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 replica of something that had come to mind..