Author: Emily Watkins Allen

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13:

The South has undergone much political and economic change throughout the twentieth century, but surprisingly, social expectations have to a certain extent maintained traditional gender roles. Six novels published since the Southern Renaissance document the conflict of tradition with personal strength: Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind, Lillian Smith's Strange Fruit, The Annunciation by Ellen Gilchrist, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, and The Color Purple by Alice Walker. White women are presented as Southern belles, while black women, largely as a result of white expectations, also remain subject to nineteenth century social values. The ideal black slave was a stereotype of the devoted child, caring, naive, but inherently stupid. White women are encouraged towards those characteristics deemed attractive to men---charm, beauty, social respectability, and the ability to bear and raise progeny. This expectation of sexuality also leads to suspicion: the Madonna-whore dichotomy emerges for white women, and black women are on one hand expected to bear children, and on the other held to white society's concern for chastity and personal reputation. The Southern belle remains a symbol of the region; therefore, a study of Southern social expectations since the Civil War reflects the changes it has undergone. While the white woman is still subject to these values, and has traditionally been presented as victimized by them, there is a theme in modern Southern literature of personal exploration and awakening despite the restrictive values of the dominant society. Black woman too attempt to create a new image of the feminine ideal by living by opposite values. These characteristics of intelligence independence, courage, determination and drive are not "normal" for Southern women, and to a certain extent must be learned or relearned in any quest for identity and personal strength. Living in spite of society's insistence that women remain submissive demands the repudiation of certain aspects of the South's culture. The experience of the individual determines the lengths to which these women go to make personal stands. Some women choose to rebel against the South within the South while others physically move away from undesirable cultural influences altogether; those that move away do not, however, instantly become free of their past.