As the protagonist and narrator of “Barn Burning,” young Colonel Sartoris Snopes drives the central conflict of the story. Torn between loyalty to his father and a desire to do what is morally and legally right, Sartoris makes a split-second decision with dire consequences. Sartoris’s internal conflict is present from the beginning when the narrator describes “the smell and sense just a little of fear because mostly of despair and grief, the old fierce pull of blood” (1). Sartoris is called upon by “the old fierce pull of blood” to protect and lie for his father, Abner Snopes, an arsonist and outsider with little care for his employers, other townspeople, or the law. The “fierce pull” comes with “despair and grief” because Sartoris is bothered by his father’s cold, unfeeling behavior.

Sartoris is made in his father’s image: “small for his age, small and wiry like his father, in patched and faded jeans even too small for him, with straight, uncombed, brown hair and eyes gray and wild as storm scud” (2). Despite his obvious desire to tell the truth, Sartoris identifies his father’s accusers as “his father’s enemy (our enemy he thought in that despair; ourn! mine and hisn both! He’s my father!)” (1).