Abner Snopes In Barn Burning

In William Faulkner's short story "Barn Burning," class is a major part of the setting that gives us a better understanding of the background of Sarty's struggle with issues of morality.
The Snopes family lives in a post-Civil War South. They are sharecroppers, which puts them at the bottom of socio-economic totem pole, since they do not own land, and can only rent it. The only group of people positioned lower than them are the blacks, and after they were freed from slavery, by necessity they had to compete for work with the white sharecroppers - a fact that Abner Snopes resented with passion.
The Snopeses are very poor. We see it in the opening scene, in the way Sarty's pants are too small for him, he is hungry, and he can't read. The way they speak also shows
Unfortunately, Abner does not even try to improve his lot in life. His situation is complicated by his lack of moral compass and his psychological issues. We are told that Abner participated in the Civil War, but he did not fight for his ideals, or freedom, or any such goal: “[he] had gone to that war a private in the fine old European sense, wearing no uniform, admitting the authority of and giving fidelity to no man or army or flag […]” (96) He was a horse thief, and he was stealing indiscriminately from both sides. This lack of morals is evident after the war, also. He is in constant enraged state and rights the wrongs done to him by burning the offender’s barn, exhibiting no respect for other people’s property, or the law, for that matter. He does not see that living within the limits of socially acceptable behavior is a way to improve oneself. There is an interesting paradox here in the way that Abner, a man without any loyalty to anybody, demands absolute and unconditional loyalty from his family, and Sarty in