Category: southern womanhood

+

What to Expect in 2018!

Welcome to 2018! Back in August 2015, I started Interminable Rambling as a space for me to flesh out thoughts I had concerning texts I was reading, pedagogy, and culture. Since that first post, I have published 236 posts for this site on a myriad of topics such as Mary Rowlandson and Sarah Kemble Knight to Star Wars: The Force Awakens and court cases such … Read More What to Expect in 2018!

+

Frank Yerby’s Benton’s Row and Southern Womanhood

In its review (above) of Frank Yerby's Benton's Row (1954), Jet Magazine mentions the novel's early narrative arc that follows Tom Benton's arrival in the Louisiana community and his relationship with Sarah. The reviewer comments that Tom "is not at all unlike all the other Yerby heroes" and that "in the typical Yerby mold [Tom] emerges as a thoroughgoing rascal, an opportunist who seizes what … Read More Frank Yerby’s Benton’s Row and Southern Womanhood

+

Frank Yerby and the Myth of White Southern Womanhood, Part 2

Over the past couple of posts, I have written about the way that Frank Yerby challenges stereotypes and the Cult of True Womanhood in The Dahomean (1971) and A Darkness at Ingraham’s Crest (1979). Today, I want to conclude this discussion by briefly highlighting the ways that Yerby constructs his African, African American, and mixed-race female characters in these two novels as counters to … Read More Frank Yerby and the Myth of White Southern Womanhood, Part 2

+

Frank Yerby and the Myth of White Southern Womanhood

As mentioned in my recent post on Gillian (1960), Frank Yerby challenges the myth of Southern womanhood in his works. While I did not discuss how he does that in Gillian, I want to explore how he shatters the myth in A Darkness at Ingraham’s Crest (1979), the follow up to his 1971 book The Dahomean. While The Dahomean chronicles Hwesu’s life in Africa, … Read More Frank Yerby and the Myth of White Southern Womanhood

+

The Convict Lease System in Frank Yerby’s “Gillian”

Frank Yerby’s Gillian (1960) deals, thematically, with the idea of manhood and the mythological ideals surrounding white Southern Womanhood. Gillian MacAllister and Hero Farnsworth shatter the virginal, innocent idea of white Southern Womanhood while Michael Ames challenges ideas of manhood. While these themes are at the forefront of Gillian,  there are, as usual with Yerby, racial aspects that swim just beneath the surface. Gillian, … Read More The Convict Lease System in Frank Yerby’s “Gillian”