By Madison Hiser and Victoria Hernandez

Spanning from the peaks of the Ozarks to the foothills of the Appalachians, encased by the Mississippi River’s sprawling deltas and coasts of both mossy marshes and sun-kissed shores, the American South has inspired generations of storytellers. Stemming from a region characterized by community and tradition, the Southern identity holds significant weight in American culture. A vessel through which the South has shared these characteristics with the world is its literature. Southern literary works portray the unique perspective, identity, and values of Southerners through important themes that readers nationwide can relate to. Through the narratives of Southern authors, the legacy of the South lives on.

The legacy written in the pages of Southern stories is one characterized by the notorious eras of pre-Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow, but also one of shared humanity. These stories, created by both men and women, proud Southerners and migrants, authors of many ethnicities and backgrounds, tell timeless stories of life, love, loss, and resilience in times of change through a unique voice and perspective.

Southern writers have a distinct voice in storytelling, characterized by their use of language and dialect, such as turns of phrase unique to the South. Other commonalities found in content across the genre include a sense of place, the presence of religion in society, the importance of community and characters who challenge societal norms. Some of the most influential Southern writers include Flannery O’Connor, who depicted stories of misfits in the South, and Eudora Welty, who focused on the mannerisms of Southern culture through her work.

The South is built by its traditions, values, and social norms, such as community and hospitality. These ideas and how they are passed down and perceived from generation to generation are central to the Southern perspective. 

Reagan Stanley, a senior English education major at the University of Arkansas, emphasized that Southern literature is preservation of a type of history that is no longer told, going beyond the assumptions of being the former Confederacy.

“To me Southern literature, the importance of it really is going to be about the history it tells,” Stanley said. “It’s inherently unique to the United States, and especially the subcultures that I think oftentimes are ignored.”

Those subcultures being Appalachian lore and the stories told by the generations prior, he said.

Dr. Lisa Hinrichsen is an associate professor at the UA, specializing in the literature of the American South. She said that storytelling is a form of worldmaking, and the worlds made depicting the narratives of the South are very deserving of study.

“I’ve been very interested in how contemporary Southern literature brings together the U.S. South and the Global South to process questions of diasporic identity, shared historical trauma, and how it re-conceptualizes exclusionary and exceptionalist notions of nation and region,” Hinrichsen said.

As these storytelling elements are used to identify the voice of a Southern writer, there are common topics explored in Southern literature that convey their perspective. Themes such as race and class are essential to telling the history of the American South, while other themes found in the genre are telling of the values of Southern culture, ultimately detailing what the South has to offer to the broader American culture.

“Whenever we take a look at Southern literature,” Stanley said. “I think what you need to do is look at the inspiration that it has. I think oftentimes when people look at the South, you don’t notice how much destruction has been wrought on it. In general, with the mass exodus of many people, as well as the very lack of wasn’t support systems in place for single mothers and also the destruction that the opioid epidemic has ravaged in the past couple of years, to where you see a lot of those who have a lot of high drug dependency issues that are facing the modern day.”

As lineage and family bonds are prominent aspects of Southern culture, they are also prevalent in Southern writing. Writers from the South consistently set their narratives around the importance of familial ties. In these stories, characters are often deeply connected to their lineage, and these relationships often serve as a character’s main source of identity or conflict. Southern literature often highlights the significance of traditions and values passed down through generations. The preservation of cultural and familial customs is an important aspect of Southern identity.

Similar to family, a sense of community is an integral part of Southern identity. In Southern literature, the value of community can be shown in the form of many archetypes and circumstances. One example distinctive to the South is the matriarchal figure.

Strong, influential women are staples of Southern culture and literature alike; they are often the ones maintaining traditions and connections. Southern authors address this role in their work by exploring the Southern family and the influence women play in the narrative’s society.  Like in their own families, Southern women often serve as matriarchal figures to the community. This is shown in literature as the concepts of community and family are closely intertwined, fostering shared values, and a sense of collective identity.

Dr. Jarvis Young, UA assistant professor who specializes in African American Literature, acknowledges this concept in his study of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s anthology of poems, “Sketches of Southern Life,” particularly in her “Aunt Chloe” poems. 

“When reading her poems, we see the thoughts and conversations that black families and/or communities have in their living rooms and kitchens. We can imagine Aunt Chloe sitting in a living room chair discussing politics with her niece or nephew while using her own idioms and expressions,” Young said. “These kinds of visualizations and images, in my view, shapes and informs our understanding of what happens in black familial and communal spaces in the south and elsewhere.”

Similarly to Harper, Maya Angelou, a Missouri born, Arkansas raised, African American poet wrote a memoir about her childhood in the segregated South called “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” It is illustrated in this work how influential women in a Southern society serve as matriarchal figures to others in their community, specifically by describing who Mrs. Bertha Flowers was to a young Angelou (Marguerite Johnson).

Angelou wrote “She was one of the few gentlewomen I have ever known and has remained throughout my life the measure of what a human being can be.” This quote details the significance of women who hold these values in their community and how pivotal their influence can be for the people around them.  

The close-knit nature of small-town communities in this region of the U.S. creates a well-known aspect of its culture known as “Southern hospitality.” It is the inherent practice of engaging in common generosity and imposing the sense of togetherness. When found in literature or reality, Southern hospitality reflects not only the importance of community, but implies the importance of tradition in Southern culture.

Tradition is a staple of Southern culture, shown particularly through the social customs and values of Southerners. Social customs, such as manners and etiquette, are often rooted in tradition, and they create a sense of community and influence the way people behave in the South. 

Another custom of the South is religion. Like family, community, and hospitality the Southern identity is strongly rooted in the presence of religion. Churches and their religious practices often play a significant role in Southern communities, influencing social behavior and shared values, while the Bible serves as a structuring text for literature written in or about the American South. Likewise, religion is an essential aspect of Southern literature, as it helps shape characters and their communities, influencing their morals and values, and addresses their questions about the meaning of life or their existence. 

Literary works from the South explore the complex nature of characters’ personal relationships with faith and their association with religious practices; characters are often written to ponder over morality, inherent evil, redemption, and the search for meaning through their faith. 

These works also often evaluate the contradictions between characters’ religious beliefs and their behavior. Hypocrisy within the Church, internal struggle, and challenging of one’s faith are all prevalent themes portrayed in Southern writing.

While Southern writers tend to acknowledge the complexities of behavioral expectations imposed on society, they also frequently explore tensions between old ways and new beginnings. These authors create characters who face challenges of evolving landscape and cultural changes; they deal with shifting cultural norms and challenging the status quo.

A work of Southern literature that touches heavily on the idea of understanding and challenging tradition and societal norms in the American South is “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

This esteemed novel by Alabama native Harper Lee is an essential piece of literature that tells the legacy of the South. The novel exhibits many common themes of Southern literature and is set in a pre-Civil Rights era Deep South. The narrative considers the values of family, tradition, and humanity in the South while challenging deep prejudice and injustices of the time.

An important aspect of Lee’s perspective as a Southern writer is her ability to show an understanding for humanity amidst long-standing injustice and suffering; she does this in this novel through a tender-aged narrator. Lee expresses through her narrator’s coming-of-age realizations that prejudice is learned behavior and societal norms are reinforced by each generation. The choice to use a child as a vessel of this perspective allows readers from any region of the U.S. or abroad to hear the voice of a new generation of Southerners, a voice that is willing to challenge injustice and uphold wholesome traditions.

Lee’s novel expansively explores social injustice, how it thrives and how it is fought, as it was in the Jim Crow South. Most written works to come out of the South address social justice as it applies to race, gender, and class.

These subjects are ingrained in many works of Southern literature’s greater meaning, as they often discuss disparities between different socioeconomic groups, genders, and races. Characters in these stories confront issues related to poverty, inequality, and social systems that prompt readers to reflect on the concept of justice, or lack thereof, within the society portrayed.

An excellent example of these elements working together to create an amusing, yet convicting, Southern narrative is Kathryn Stockett’s “The Help.” The novel paints the contrasting scene of a “picture-perfect” Southern society that masks the struggles of the working-class Black population in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960s. The story follows African American housekeepers, or “the help,” as they maintain the homes of both White families and their own, and a young aspiring writer who is disillusioned by the society in which she has grown up.

Stockett wrote, “Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else.” in this national best-seller. The authorial comment is rooted in her own perspective as a New York City writer who grew up in Jackson, Mississippi surrounded by the upheaval and societal unrest following the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South.

Like other Southern literary works,“The Help” accounts the various roles members of a community play in instances of injustice, depicting acts of, resistance to, or complicity in it. Stockett’s characters also challenge the traditional notions of class, race, and gender and advocate for more inclusive and equitable understanding for others.

Not only does Stockett’s novel now stand as a Southern literary pillar for exhibiting class struggles in the American South, but it is also paving a path for contemporary Southern literature.

Decades have passed since Jackson, Mississippi’s society has reflected its portrayal in Stockett’s novel, but there is an importance of a contemporary Southern voice drawing on the city’s past. Her voice not only depicts a Deep South narrative to a new generation with modern-day humor and perspective, but it also inserts ideals that exist in this region of the U.S. more prevalently than before, such as tolerance and acceptance of others.

Hinrichsen shares that contemporary Southern literature is “rich and multifaceted in its stories, authors, and reckonings with the questions of history, community, and memory.”

A discussion on Southern literature is never complete without mentioning Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner. As arguably the most famous writer produced by the American South, he is remembered as a devoted Southerner who pondered the greater meaning in life and acknowledged a balance of societal change and preservation of Southern culture in his work. 

Historically, the interconnectedness of family and community and the presence of religion influenced the way of life in the South, and the ideas of individualism and change were not yet associated with this region of the U.S. The generation of writers which Faulkner belonged to set a trend in Southern literature that acknowledged Southern values while instilling these new ideals and discussing problematic realities. 

Literature stands as a testament to the heart of the American South, offering its perspectives and values, as well as its more controversial realities, for many generations to consider. To Stanley, these stories give an idea of hope.

“I think hope is something that is best described as being aware of the problem first, because if you don’t know what the problem really is, how can you have hope for it to be resolved?,” he said.

Southern literature continues to contribute to national discussions on topics such as race, class, gender, societal change, and personal identity, adding another perspective to a conversation on an ever-changing American society. When literature from the South is acknowledged for how it contributes to the broader American culture, it can counter or create new perceptions on Southern culture as it exists today.

Through the lens of themes like family, community, tradition, race, class and religion, Southern writers have created narratives that resonate beyond geographical borders. The enduring legacy of the South shown in its literature reminds us of the power storytelling has to bring people together, foster understanding, and acknowledge the diversity of human experience.