Abner's actions in the story "Barn Burning" show him as a calculating and almost metaic individual. He displays a "wolflike independence" in his actions of buring barns. He is striking out at people more wealthy than him because he knows it will be impossible for him to ever be that rich. He would strike "when the advantage was at least neutral"; meaning he wouldn't wait to have and edge on them, he would just strike. Furthermore, his son Sarty sees him as a metalic man of no emotion. When he spoke to him on the hill, he thought his father Abner was "a shape black, flat and bloodless as though cut from tin." Even his voice was described as metalic and lifeless; This lack of emotion is nessicary for him to preform the dispicable act of burning barns.