The father insists his family survives on blood loyalty, but Sarty the youngest son is uneasy living with the families disregard for societies moral rules. This story is very ironic and at the same time very sad. The fathers belligerent lifestyle is ruining the life of the family, because they cannot stay in the same location for very long before the father ; has infuriated and outraged the locals into driving them out.
The Snopes family are sharecroppers some 30 years after the civil war. Father Abner, is indignant towards authority. Son Sarty is torn between loyalty to his father and his barn burning activities. Our sympathies are with Sarty, he is young, small raggedly dressed. His life has been all fear and grief. His brother constantly chews tobacco and does what ever his father says. His twin sisters, bovine like and lethargic also are subservient. His mother and aunt are dictated to by his father also. All the characters speak as if they have little or no education. ”Likely hit ain't fitten for hawgs," as said by one of the sisters. This family is struggling because the father always gets into a quarrel, usually with the aristocratic landlord they are sharecropping for, and ends up burning down their barn in revenge. Its almost like the father plans on getting into a conflict, or maybe he wants to because he likes burning their barns down. It seems premeditated because by the time he gets in trouble he already has a house waiting for him in a different county. The father could also be a pyromaniac, and could find pleasure by burning someone's barn down. His satisfaction seems to lie in revenge against those that look down on him.
Snopes, the name itself is disagreeable sounding. The father stomps around on his one bad foot bringing it down harder than necessary. Abner, hates aristocrats. He dislikes anyone that has more status than he does, as you can tell by how he purposely wiped manure all inside the mansion they went into and when he left he said sarcastically, “'Pretty and white, ain't it?". This is his new landlord De Spain and he immediately starts trouble with him. Abner pushes his way inside and makes a mess on the rug just to antagonize. I believe its ironic how he hates people higher in social status than himself , but treats those who he considers lower by pushing them around and orders them to do things like when he's at the door to the mansion the black helper asked him nicely to wipe his feet before he came in and he heatedly replied with, “Get out of my way, nigger,". When De Spain demands he clean the rug, Abner purposely ruins the rug, aggravating the situation and setting himself up for violent conflict.
Some more irony in this story is how Abner, the father, makes small, neat, shrewd fires, even in cold weather. The father is used to it because he could only make small fire when he was hiding during the war. Fire to Abner is a powerful weopon that he can use against those that put him down. He doesn't waste fire, he unleashes it to destroy those he feels have offended his dignity.
This story ends with the son, Sarty, trying to get his father to stop burning barns down. So he runs to tell De Spain that his barn is being burned. He goes against his blood kin by doing this and in the process gets his father and brother probably killed. Sarty sets himself free from a life of despair but destroys his blood kin in the process.
