A question of class
Subtitle: the Redneck stereotype in southern fiction
By: Duane Carr.
Publisher: Bowling Green State University Popular Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Bowling Green, OH
Language: eng
Number of pages: 188
Subjects: American fiction -- Southern States -- History and criticism.; Literature and society -- Southern States.; Stereotype (Psychology) in literature.; Working class whites in literature.; Social classes in literature.; Rednecks -- Southern States.; Poor in literature.; Southern States -- In literature.
Description: "Rednecks" have long been subjects of scorn and ridicule, especially in the South because of an antebellum caste and class system, parts of which persist to this day. In A Question of Class, Carr probes the historical and sociological reasons for the descent of "rednecks" into poverty, their inability to rise above it, and their continuing subjugation to a stereotype developed by others and too often accepted by themselves.

Carr also records the progress in southern fiction of this negative stereotype - from antebellum writers who saw "rednecks" as threats to the social order, to post-Civil War writers who lamented the lost potential of these people and urged sympathy and understanding, to modern writers who reverted, in some sense, to Old South attitudes, and finally, to contemporary writers who point toward a more democratic acceptance of this much maligned group.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-183) and index.