Faulkner's short story about Sarty Snopes and his father, Abner Snopes, has been praised ever since its first publication in Harper's Magazine for June 1939. It was reprinted in his Collected Stories (1950) and in the Selected Short Stories of William Faulkner (1961). Part of the story's greatness is due to its major theme, the conflict between loyalty to one's family and loyalty to honor and justice. This conflict is vividly illustrated by having a young 10-year-old boy — Sarty — confront this dilemma as part of his initiation into manhood.
Young Sarty has a choice: He can be loyal to his father, his blood relative, or he can do what he innately senses is right. He knows that his father is wrong when he burns barns, but Abner constantly reminds his son of the importance of family blood, and of the responsibilities that being part of a family entails. He tells Sarty, "You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain't going to have any blood to stick to you." In other words, if you are not utterly loyal to your own family, no matter if the family is right or wrong, then you will have no place to turn when you need help. At the end of the story, this is Sarty's dilemma — he has no place to go and no one to turn to.
