Jill McCorkle: The Rough South from One Remove

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Bennett
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Elementary School ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Old South ◽  
White Trash ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Poor White

This chapter discusses Jill McCorkle's fiction, which reflects the whole South, rather than just its middle class. McCorkle did not grow up amid poverty, and in fact calls her upbringing in 1960s Lumberton, North Carolina, “very much middle-class”—even upper class by the standards of her elementary school classmates. Her 1990 novel, Ferris Beach, features a character named Kitty Burns, a transition figure between the old South, with its clear divisions of class, and the new, where what a person does is more important than where that person came from. Another character, Merle Hucks, at first seems to fit the “poor white trash” stereotype, and whose family encompasses all the Rough South stereotypes. Merle, however, transcends the Rough South stereotype and distinguishes himself from his family and friends. McCorkle also published a novel called Life After Life in 2013.

Managing Difference: White Parenting Practices in Socioeconomically Diverse Neighborhoods

2021 ◽  
pp. 153568412098101
Author(s):  
Megan R. Underhill
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Parenting Practices ◽  
The Other ◽  
Spatial Distance ◽  
Poor Whites ◽  
The Poor ◽  
White Parents ◽  
Black Residents ◽  
Block Level ◽  
Poor White

Drawing on 40 interviews with white parents in two mixed-income neighborhoods—one that is majority-white and the other that is multiracial—this article examines how residence in socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods conditions the parenting practices of middle-class whites, specifically concerning parents’ management of their children’s contact with the poor. The data reveal that white parents in both neighborhoods work to ensure symbolic and spatial distance between their children and their poor neighbors resulting in distinctive patterns of micro-segregation in each neighborhood. However, how parents engage in this work depends on the race of their neighbors and the block-level geography of their community. I find that parents deploy more contact-avoidant practices toward their poor white rather than their poor black neighbors. Among participants, poor whites conjure feelings of disgust and are actively avoided, whereas poor black residents provoke feelings of ambivalence, as contact with them is judged to be both valuable and threatening.

Elevated above the Real: The Poor White Southerner in Cormac McCarthy’s Early Novels

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Southern Literature ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Southern Writers ◽  
White Trash ◽  
Poor Whites ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Poor White ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Child Of God ◽  
White Southerner

This chapter discusses the work of Cormac McCarthy, whose early novels depicted the poor white southerner. In The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, Robert Benson praises McCarthy for his vivid and honest portrayal of east Tennessee and its people—the lower classes in particular. Benson accurately characterizes McCarthy's work as a critical shift in the representation of lower-class characters in southern literature. McCarthy's focus on exploring and illuminating the lives of those often called “white trash” suggests a direct and important link between his work of the 1960s and early 1970s and the work of later southern writers invested in recovering the poor white southerner from the margins of literary representation. And yet, for several reasons, McCarthy's connection to later Rough South writers is decidedly complex. Furthermore, not all critics have been as quick as Benson to praise McCarthy's portrayal of southern poor whites. This chapter examines McCarthy's first three novels: The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark (1968), and Child of God (1973).

“We Ain’t Nothing but White Trash”. The Ethnography of Poor Whites and the Politics of Stigma in Zora Neale Hurston’s Seraph on the Suwanee.

2021 ◽  
pp. 092137402110533
Author(s):  
Djemila Zeneidi
Keyword(s):  
Objective Analysis ◽  
White Population ◽  
White Trash ◽  
Poor Whites ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
Historical Group ◽  
Poor White ◽  
Seraph On The Suwanee ◽  
Subjective Side

This article aims to demonstrate the documentary value of Zora Neale, Hurston’s descriptions, in her novel Seraph on the Suwanee, of the condition of the poor white US Southerners known as “crackers.” By, depicting a “cracker” woman’s upward social trajectory through, marriage, Hurston reveals the social and existential reality of this, segment of the white population. Her novel presents an objective, analysis of the crackers as a socio-historical group distinct from other, whites. However, Hurston also explores the subjective side of belonging to this discredited group by offering an account of her heroine’s experience of stigmatization.

Mobility Stopped in Its Tracks

Transfers ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 87-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catharine Coleborne
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
Poor White ◽  
White Immigrants ◽  
The Many ◽  
Interpretive Framework

This article examines the interpretive framework of “mobility” and how it might usefully be extended to the study of the Australasian colonial world of the nineteenth century, suggesting that social institutions reveal glimpses of (im)mobility. As the colonies became destinations for the many thousands of immigrants on the move, different forms of mobility were desired, including migration itself, or loathed, such as the itinerant lifestyles of vagrants. Specifically, the article examines mobility through brief accounts of the curtailed lives of the poor white immigrants of the period. The meanings of mobility were produced by immigrants' insanity, vagrancy, wandering, and their casual movement between, and reliance on, welfare and medical institutions. The regulation of these forms of mobility tells us more about the contemporary paradox of the co-constitution of mobility and stasis, as well as providing a more fluid understanding of mobility as a set of transfers between places and people.

Privilege Accumulation Among Upper Middle-Class Youth in Mexico

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minor Mora-Salas ◽  
Orlandina de Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Mexican Families ◽  
Life Trajectories ◽  
Class Background ◽  
Upper Middle Class ◽  
Class Youth

This chapter demonstrates how upper middle-class Mexican families mobilize a vast array of social, cultural, and economic resources to expand their children’s opportunities in life and ensure the intergenerational transmission of their social position. The authors analyze salient characteristics of families’ socioeconomic and demographics in the life histories of a group of young Mexicans from an upper middle-class background. Many believe that micro-social processes, especially surrounding education, are key to understanding how upper-class families mobilize their various resources to shape their children’s life trajectories. These families accumulate social advantages over time that accrue to their progeny and benefit them upon their entrance to the labor market.

Ever-Single Heterosexual Couples in Nonmarital Cohabitation: Spirituality, Connectedness, and Adjustment

2021 ◽  
pp. 106648072110239
Author(s):  
Samta P. Pandya
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Relationship Quality ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Heterosexual Couples ◽  
Highly Qualified ◽  
Christian Couples ◽  
Work Intervention ◽  
Do It Yourself ◽  
Near Future

This article reports a study on the effectiveness of WhatsApp-based spiritual posts in promoting connectedness and adjustment among ever-single heterosexual couples in nonmarital cohabitation in four global cities. In comparison with trivia posts, the spiritual posts had greater impact and were more effective for Christian couples, middle class, highly qualified, and professionals-salaried cohabitants. This was in comparison with Hindu–Buddhist–Sikh dyads, upper class, with college degree, and entrepreneurs. However, cohabitation duration, initial cohabitation experience with other partners, having children/cohabitation dependents, and near future marriage plans were not significant predictors. Gender also did not significantly moderate spiritual intervention responses as proposed in the previous research. Couple intervention outcomes were mutually interdependent and intervention compliance in terms of number of posts read and do-it-yourself exercises posted were robust predictors of intervention success. With some subgroup-specific refinements, WhatsApp-based spiritual posts would be an effective spiritually sensitive social work intervention for improving relationship quality of nonmarital cohabitants.

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