Ab Snopes joined the Confederate Army during the Civil War, but his enlistment was driven purely by convenience. As the reader learns, Ab went to war as a "private" in the “fine old European sense”—motivated solely by the chance to loot. ''It meant nothing and less than nothing to him if it were enemy booty or his own.’’ Snopes was shot in the heel and limped as a result, but Faulkner makes it clear he doesn't deserve the usual respect given to wounded veterans. Snopes carries a deeper, more significant wound, possibly as ancient as original sin: an inflated ego and a hypersensitive nature, quick to take offense like a striking cobra. His existence appears to be a relentless cycle of offense, revenge, and escape. The barn-burning mentioned in the title refers to Snopes's habit of torching the property of those who, in his view, wrong him.

Similar to Captain Sutpen in Absalom, Absalom!, who attempts to create his own world separate from the larger society, Ab possesses a kind of God-complex. However, he lacks Sutpen's creativity, and his madness manifests through control, destruction, and fury. Ab's wife and daughters live entirely under his oppressive shadow, serving him passively and showing little initiative or imagination as he bullies them and others. (Only Sarty, Ab's son, has a will comparable to his father's.) But this God-complex is merely a surface symptom of a deep-seated lack of self-confidence. It is the insecurity of a man who feels rejected by society and cursed by fate, causing him to seethe with a perpetual sense of injury.

Despite never making plans to escape the cycle of itinerant land-tenancy—thus trapping himself in it—Ab harbors hatred for those who employ him. For instance, when he intentionally tracks dung into Major de Spain's manor house, he is expressing his disdain for all those who, due to his own actions, hold any power over him. It is almost as if he seeks out conflict to justify his covert acts of vengeful arson.

Ultimately, there is something both petty and harsh about Ab, whose theft of fence-posts to build a fire only produces a meager flame, inadequate to warm his family at their campsite. He strikes Sarty and handles his wife and daughter roughly, all while preaching the sanctity of family ties. Ab is a walking failure and a continuous source of provocation. The personal hell he creates by waging a perpetual war against everyone around him becomes torment for others—most notably for Sarty, his mother, and his sisters. They are condemned to suffer endless humiliation until the day Ab dies.