In Plantation Airs, Brannon Costello argues persuasively for new
attention to the often neglected issue of class in southern
literary studies. Focusing on the relationship between racial
paternalism and social class in American novels written after World
War II, Costello asserts that well into the twentieth century,
attitudes and behaviors associated with an idealized version of
agrarian antebellum aristocracy -- especially, those of racial
paternalism -- were believed to be essential for white southerners.
The wealthy employed them to validate their identities as
"aristocrats," while less-affluent whites used them to separate
themselves from "white trash" in the social hierarchy. Even those
who were not legitimate heirs of plantation-owning families found
that "putting on airs" associated with the legacy of the plantation
could align them with the forces of power and privilege and offer
them a measure of authority in the public arena that they might
otherwise lack.
Fiction by Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, William Faulkner,
Ernest Gaines, Walker Percy, and others reveals, however, that the
racial paternalism central to class formation and mobility in the
South was unraveling in the years after World War II, when the
civil rights movement and the South's increasing industrialization
dramatically altered southern life. Costello demonstrates that
these writers were keenly aware of the ways in which the changes
sweeping the South complicated the deeply embedded structures that
governed the relationship between race and class. He further
contends that the collapse of racial paternalism as a means of
organizing class lies at the heart of their most important works --
including Hurston's Seraph on the Suwanee and her essay "The 'Pet
Negro' System," Welty's Delta Wedding and The Ponder Heart,
Faulkner's The Mansion and The Reivers, Gaines's Of Love and Dust
and his story "Bloodline," and Percy's The Last Gentleman and Love
in the Ruins.
By examining ways in which these works depict and critique the
fall of the plantation ideal and its aftermath, Plantation Airs
indicates the richness and complexity of the literary responses to
this intersection of race and class. Understanding how many of the
modern South's best writers imagined and engaged the various facets
of racial paternalism in their fiction, Costello confirms, helps
readers construct a more comprehensive picture of the complications
and contradictions of class in the South.
General
Imprint: |
Louisiana State University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Southern Literary Studies |
Release date: |
December 2007 |
First published: |
December 2007 |
Authors: |
Brannon Costello
|
Dimensions: |
216 x 140 x 20mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover - Cloth over boards / With dust jacket
|
Pages: |
216 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8071-3270-8 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-8071-3270-5 |
Barcode: |
9780807132708 |
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