From the onset of "Barn Burning" it is obvious that the boy, Colonel Sartoris Snopes, fears his father. When he is called up to testify, his father "did not even look at him" at which point Colonel knows that "He aims for me to lie, he thought, again with that frantic grief and despair. And I will have to do it". His father is described as a "savage" man and orders the mother to "get back" when she tries to tend to her son's injuries. At the same time, Colonel seems to want to be brave in front of his father and claims "Hit don't hurt. Lemme be". His father, believing the son would have exposed him, struck him when they were alone but at the same time, tried to emphasize to his son, how family had to stick together. He tells his son that "You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain't going to have any blood to stick to you" yet at the same time, he seems to treat his family coldly and harshly. By including his son in his bad deeds however, the father seems to not have a moral compass.
While it appeared the boy feared his father, he also seemed to admire him in some aspects as well. He seemed to admire his father's "foresight" in that he believed that "likely his father had already arranged to make a crop on another farm before he -. He also stated "there was something about his wolf like independence and even courage when the advantage was at least neutral which impressed strangers". Colonel's seemingly conflicting feelings for his father are somewhat rooted in what he has heard of his father's past and his experiences during the war and the fire he insisted on each night was "some deep mainspring of his father's being as the one weapon for the preservation of integrity" and described his father's movements, as an "absolutely undeviating course".
Young Colonel Sartoris Snopes, or Sarty, would end up either running away from home to escape his father, or stay and become the same type of man that his father was.