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Southern Identity
Identity is very important to people. It helps people to know who they are and gives their lives purposes. It makes people definable and recognizable. Southerners, a special part of the United States’ population, have struggled for a long time to find their identities since they have been despised by northerners. Though southerners have a hard time defining their identities due to subjugation by the North, the conflict about slavery, and the loss in the Civil War, they still show their desire to find their identities in many ways, especially through writings.
In history, the South was always ignored and despised by the North. “The North” and “The United States” were said to be interchangeable. According to the book Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity, “The South’s differences with America were defined largely in terms of its differences with the North. The leaders of the South seemed like dwarfs by the side of the giants of the North. ” One of the magazines at that time even declared that “the North was primarily responsible for the nation’s growth and success.” (Cobb 35) One reason that the South has suffered from the neglect and criticism by the North was slavery. Northerners opposed slavery. “By the 1800s, a growing number of northern critics saw slavery and the slaveholding South in general as both a smudge on the nation’s character and a serious challenge to the northern-inspired national ideas of progress and self-improvement.” (Cobb 34)
Slavery was one of the factors that contributed to the Civil War. The South lost in this war, which made it harder for southerners to find their identities. The term “lost cause” was invented to help southerners preserve their dignity. It describes a situation in which a person is destined to fail regardless of how powerful he or she is. The term was immediately used by southerners after the Civil War. Many scholars attribute the term to the Virginia journalist Edward. A. Pollard and his postwar books, including The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates (1866). The concept of the lost cause supplied a heroic interpretation of the war so that the southerners could maintain their sense of honor (Williams).
However, southerners were not better off when they were using this term. The term “lost cause” helped southerners not to suffer too much after they lost the war since this term stated that their loss is destined; however, this term prevented them from defining their identities because they did not figure out the reasons they lost. The result that the South lost in the war is reasonable. Before the Civil War the South considered itself as genteel, civil, beautiful and lavish. But at the same time it was arrogant, conservative and isolated. The South’s social system was backward and the South was secluded from advanced technology and science. The South lacked factories for manufacturing weapons, whereas the North had plenty of factories and collieries. Slaves and cotton alone could not help the South win the war. However, southerners did not recognize their disadvantages; instead they despised northerners and considered northerners as barbaric (Hillyer). For example, in the movie Gone With the Wind the southern men in the luxurious banquet were gathered together and were talking about the upcoming war with confidence and arrogance. But the South lost the war in the end; the place that once held that luxurious banquet was burned down by northern soldiers and those men with great ambitions died valiantly on the battlefield. After the Civil War southerners’ identities became hazier because the perfect image of the South in their minds was broken. Southerners needed to find their identities and to reconstruct their confidence.
Several southern authors at that time devoted themselves to helping southerners find their identities. William Faulkner is the most influential one among them. In his famous book As I Lay Dying Faulkner revealed the duality of southern people. The whole book tells a story based on Addie Bundren’s dying wish, which is to be buried in the town of Jefferson. On the way to the Jefferson town, the Bundrens face many challenges. The Bundrens are depicted as fatuous, closefisted, selfish, and indifferent by Faulkner. They do not love Addie but they still try to accomplish her dying wish. All the negative characteristics seem to appear in them, but they do their best to protect the coffin and to fix each challenge they face on the way, which is ironic. In As I Lay Dying Faulkner portrayed the duality of southerners through a southern family. He tried to convey the idea that people have two sides and it is hard to tell whether they are good or bad. Southerners should recognize themselves comprehensively. In addition to being proud of their tradition and civilization, southerners should also acknowledge that they have weaknesses and shortcomings. William Faulkner’s works are important and helpful to southern people.
Besides famous authors like Faulkner, some ordinary southerners also try to convey southerners’ identities through their works. One example is the website The Bitter Southerner. According to the website, “the purpose of The Bitter Southerner is to explore, from every angle we can, the duality of the Southern thing.” The editor-in-chief, Chuck Reece first came up with the idea of establishing this website when he was in New Orleans and he spent time with some amazing barkeeps. He drank well, heard great stories and learned. However, when Drinks International released its list of the top 50 bars in the world, not a single bar in the South was on the list. This experience recalled his memory when he moved to New York. His southern accent triggered negative assumptions people had about him. So he decided to do some things to show the real South to people who aren’t from there, as a result The Bitter Southerner appeared. More and more ordinary southerners, like Chuck Reece, have devoted themselves to show the southern identity to people through many ways. The online magazine Atlanta is another good example. One of its articles “How Southern Are We?” talks about the southern identity of two periods: the Old South and the New South. The article tells people that they should accept Old South’s identity, which is, “250 years of slavery and then secession followed by a century of legalized segregation.” At the same time, it wants people to be proud of the southern identity, which includes “celebrating storytellers and sermonizers, blues and bluegrass, comforting casseroles and spicy gumbos, jambalayas, and pepper jellies.” At the end it welcomes people to explore the Future South, which is the “complex synthesis of the old and the new South.”
To sum up, southerners have experienced a long struggle to find their identities since their identities were denied by northerners and ruined by the fact that they lost in the Civil War. However, southern people never give up defining themselves. Famous authors like William Faulkner revealed the duality in southerners’ identities through his books. Besides, some ordinary southerners also try to convey the real southern identity to the world through their special ways. With their endeavor they will one day prove themselves.
Work Cited
Burns, Rebecca. "How Southern Are We." Atlanta. N.p., Nov. 2012. Web. 11 July 2013.
Cobb, James C. "The South Becomes a Cause." Away down South: A History of Southern Identity. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. 34-35. Print.
Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. New York: Random House, 1964. Print.
Gone With the Wind. Dir. Vector Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood. Perf. Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable. 1939. Film.
Hillyer, Reiko. "Relics of Reconciliation: The Confederate Museum and Civil War Memory in the New South." The Public Historian 33 (2011): 35-62. JSTOR. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/tph.2011.33.4.35>.
The Bitter Southerner. Ed. Chuck Reece. N.p., 2013. Web. 11 July 2013.
Williams, David S. "Lost Cause Religion." New Georgia Encyclopedia. 08 August 2013. Web. 01 October 2013.