What is the central thematic conflict of “Barn Burning" in relation to Sarty?

The central thematic conflict on William Faulkner's
Barn Burning is family loyalty versus social appropriateness, and
the pressures of blood ties versus the chastising of behaviors within one's own
family.

In this way the central thematic conflict is a
modern dilemma for Sarty. In the story, Sarty has to choose between remaining loyal and
keeping the secret of his father, which is to burn other people's barns as an act of
sadistic enjoyment. The father intends to initiate Sarty in this practice and invites
him to watch him do it.

Sarty's modernist dilemma consist
in deciding whether he is going to perpetuate an abhorrent conduct only for the sake of
the blood ties that connect him to his father, his primary care provider. The second
option: Give his father in to the Major of Spain, and destroy any chance of this
happening again in the future, even if it means telling on his father and getting him in
trouble.

All this was very hard for a young boy whose only
life has consisted in watching his father commit these acts as if nothing wrong was with
it. It is a form of brainwashing that Sarty has almost fallen for. Yet, we know that the
difficulty lays primarily in the boy's feeling of loyalty to a father who is breaking
the law, and the boy's coming of age into recognizing that what his father is doing is
wrong, and one must man up to the fact and face the
consequences.