Plantation Airs: Racial Paternalism and the Transformations of Class in Southern Fiction, 1945--1971

217 Pages·2007·2.68 MB·English

by  Brannon Costello

�
BRANNON COSTELLO
aftermath, Plantation Airs indicates the richness and LITERARY STUDIES n Plantation Airs, Brannon Costello argues
I
complexity of the literary responses to this intersec- persuasively for new attention to the often-neglected
tion of race and class. Understanding how many of C issue of class in southern literary studies. Focusing on
O PLANTATION
the modern South’s best writers imagined and en- the relationship between racial paternalism and social
“Brannon Costello succeeds where others have failed to bring the S
gaged the various facets of racial paternalism in their T class in American novels written after World War II,
problematics of race and class together in an intersectional study that
fiction, Costello confirms, helps readers construct a E AIRS Costello asserts that well into the twentieth century,
convinces. Plantation Airs is a remarkable achievement, original in the L
more comprehensive picture of the complications attitudes and behaviors associated with an ideal-
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best sense of the word. It is an invaluable addition to the study of race
and contradictions of class in the South. O ized version of agrarian antebellum aristocracy—
and class in the U.S. South.”
A especially, those of racial paternalism—were be-
— BARBARA LADD, author of Resisting History: Gender, Modernity, P lieved to be essential for white southerners. The
and Authorship in William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, and wealthy employed them to validate their identities as
L
Eudora Welty “aristocrats,” while less-affluent whites used them to
A separate themselves from “white trash” in the social
“Brannon Costello’s ambitious book shows how the most important hierarchy. Even those who were not legitimate heirs
modern southern writers addressed complex issues of class and the N of plantation-owning families found that “putting
plantation at a time when plantations were becoming huge corporate on airs” associated with the legacy of the plantation
enterprises that employed fewer laborers. Rather than merely detail- T could align them with the forces of power and privi-
ing the decline of plantation myths, he shows how writers dealt with lege and offer them a measure of authority in the
A
issues such as the planter tradition of conspicuous and wasteful spend- public arena that they might otherwise lack.
ing, definitions of racial hybridity, and the possibilities of rethinking Fiction by Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty,
T
rural class relations. In these writers’ works, plantations are important William Faulkner, Ernest Gaines, Walker Percy, and
as memories, sometimes wistful, often angry, and almost always partial I others reveals, however, that the racial paternalism
BRANNON COSTELLO is a professor of English at and still-changing.” central to class formation and mobility in the South
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Louisiana State University. was unraveling in the years after World War II, when
— TED OWNBY, author of Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, and
the civil rights movement and the South’s increasing
Manhood in the Rural South, 865–920 N
industrialization dramatically altered southern life.
Southern Literary Studies Costello demonstrates that these writers were keenly

FRED HOBSON, SERIES EDITOR A aware of the ways in which the changes sweeping the
South complicated the deeply embedded structures
Jacket photograph by Marisa Allegra Williams I that governed the relationship between race and
class. He further contends that the collapse of ra-
R
cial paternalism as a means of organizing class lies at
OUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
L
BATON ROUGE 70808 S the heart of their most important works—including
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Hurston’s Seraph on the Suwanee and her essay “The
OUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS Press � ‘Pet Negro’ System,” Welty’s Delta Wedding and The
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State IìS<B(Ns9k7)8k-0(-=8b0d71c-h3a27i0< -8+ ^ -Ä - U -Ä-U > and and Percy’s The Last Gentleman and Love in the Ruins.
JACKET DESIGN BY MICHELLE A. NEUSTROM 07 Louisiana THSEO TURTAHNESRFNO FRIMCATTIOIONN, 1S9 O4F5 –CL1A97S1S IN andB cyr eitxiaqmuein tihneg fwalal yosf i nth we hpilcahn ttahteiosen widoerakls a dnedp iictst
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recto i
PLANTATION AIRS
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ii PLANTATION AIRS
Southern Literary Studies
FRED HOBSON, SERIES EDITOR
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recto iii
BRANNON COSTELLO
PLANTATION
AIRS
A
RACIAL PATERNALISM
and
THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF CLASS IN
SOUTHERN FICTION, 1945–1971
Louisiana State University Press
Baton Rouge
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iv PLANTATION AIRS
Published by Louisiana State University Press
Copyright © 2007 by Louisiana State University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing
Designer: Michelle A. Neustrom
Typeface: Adobe Jenson Pro
Printer and binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Costello, Brannon, 975–
Plantation airs : racial paternalism and the transformations of class in southern fiction,
945–97 / Brannon Costello.
p. cm. — (Southern literary studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-3: 978-0-807-3270-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
. American fiction—Southern States—History and criticism. 2. Paternalism in literature.
3. Race relations in literature. 4. Social classes in literature. 5. Literature and society—South-
ern States. 6. American fiction—20th century—History and criticism. 7. Race in literature.
8. Paternalism—Southern States. 9. Southern States—Intellectual life—20th century.
0. Poor in literature. I. Title.
PS26.C59 2008
80.9'358—dc22
200706576
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. ��
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recto v
For Gina
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vi PLANTATION AIRS
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix

Introduction
THE PROBLEM OF FLEM SNOPES’S HAT
Southern History, Racial Paternalism, and Class 

PATERNALISM, PROGRESS, AND “PET NEGROES”
Zora Neale Hurston’s Seraph on the Suwanee 6
2
PLAYING LADY AND IMITATING ARISTOCRATS
Race, Class, and Money in Eudora Welty’s Delta Wedding
and The Ponder Heart 38
3
STOPPING ON A DIME
Race, Class, and the “White Economy of Material Waste” in
William Faulkner’s The Mansion and The Reivers 7
4
MECHANICS AND MULATTOES
Class, Work, and Race in Ernest Gaines’s Of Love and Dust
and “Bloodline” 00
5
“SUPER-NEGROES” AND HYBRID ARISTOCRATS
Race and Class in Walker Percy’s The Last Gentleman
and Love in the Ruins 23
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viii CONTENTS
Conclusion
FROM “PET NEGRO” TO “MAGIC NEGRO”
Hyperreal Paternalism 60

Notes 69
Works Cited 87
Index 97
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have been the grateful recipient of many kinds of assistance while
writing this book, including a Louisiana State University Council on Re-
search Summer Stipend and a Manship Summer Research Fellowship. I
am particularly thankful for the many people who helped me shape and
hone the arguments and analyses in this book. Noel Polk guided this
project in its very earliest incarnation and has been a consistent source
of support and encouragement. I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to
Mary Papke, Tom Haddox, and Chuck Maland, my dissertation commit-
tee at the University of Tennessee, whose challenging questions, thought-
ful suggestions, and great patience were crucial to this project’s transi-
tion from idea to book. Many friends have been kind enough to endure
long discussions of this project and to offer distractions from it when
they were most needed, including Matthew Evans, Ethan Krase, Darren
Hughes, Jack Butler, David McCarty, Dan Novak, and Laura Mullen.
Much appreciation is due my friends and colleagues at Louisiana State
University who, in conversation and in close reading, helped me see this
book with new eyes, including John Lowe, Katherine Henninger, Rick
Moreland, and Susannah Monta; I owe particular thanks to Sue Wein-
stein, Pallavi Rastogi, and Robert Hamm, who by now might know these
pages better than I do. It has been a pleasure to work with John Easterly
and everyone else at the LSU Press, and I am grateful for the insight-
ful comments and suggestions offered by Fred Hobson and the press’s
anonymous reader.
Finally, I am especially thankful for the unwavering support of my par-
ents, Joe and Annette Costello. And most importantly, this book might
never even have begun were it not for the inspiration and encouragement
of my wife, Gina, who never doubted even when I did.
Some portions of this book were published previously, and I extend my
thanks to the publishers for the permission to use them here. A version
ix
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