Throughout most of America, there are preconceived notions about the white working class in Appalachia, better known as “hillbillies”. In his novel, Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance gives the audience an inside look at the lifestyle of those hillbillies through both his own experiences and researched facts. He also utilizes his novel to convey a message of self-improvement to the hillbilly community. In the given excerpt from Hillbilly Elegy, Vance uses anecdotes, statistics and both an introspective and a didactic tone to comment on hillbilly culture. Vance begins the passage by acknowledging the effects of the older individuals in the Hillbilly community on the education and mindset of the youth. By incorporating examples from his own life, Vance …show more content…
adds a personal anecdote to his claim. He mentions that the community assumed that only the wealthy or those born with "raw talent" could succeed to describe how toxic the notion was. He also reflects on how the adults in his early childhood did not seem to expect much from him, as he says that he did not “remember ever being scolded for getting a bad grade until Mamaw began to take an interest in [his] grades in high school.” By addressing that the belief of automatic failure wasn't explicit but instead "[lurked] below the surface,” he implies that it is a deeply ingrained idea that is learned and passed down through the generations. Because of this mindset built up by the previous hillbillies, “students [didn’t] expect much of themselves because the people around them [didn’t] do much.” This shows the domino effect happening in the hillbilly culture: no one contributes to the growth and improvement of the community because the people before them didn’t care either. Although exposed to the idea that success was due to “raw talent”, Vance describes to the audience how he fought against this notion.
Through an anecdote that tells a story from when he was in first grade and learning complex math concepts, the audience is exposed to his experience in education, and how his experience shaped him. He writes that “the students in front of me [him] went through the easy answers - ‘twenty-nine plus one,’ ‘twenty-eight plus two’ ‘fifteen plus fifteen.’ I [he] was better than that. I [he] was going to blow the teacher away…” When he was “showed up” by another student who knew more math than he did, he “beat himself up over it”. His Papaw (grandfather) then took it upon himself to teach him mathematics that were above his grade level. Vance’s anecdote serves to show the reader that his family had ingrained into him to work hard from a young age and serves to support the well-known “learning starts at home” theory. Vance also utilizes figurative diction to show the reader the extent to which he worked. For example, the metaphorical phrase “beat myself up” demonstrates that even as a young child, Vance pressured himself to exceed the curriculum taught in school, the opposite of the messages he received in his hillbilly hometown. Vance’s competitive nature and the support from his family are what saved him from becoming a product of the ideologies of the hillbillies in his
community. In the third and fourth paragraphs of the excerpt, despite the majority of the passage focusing on how the ideals of hillbilly community affect the education of the youth, Vance shifts his focus towards the work ethic of the community. He presents the conflict of the idea of being hardworking and the actual lack of work among the hillbilly community. Through the example of his neighbor whom criticized those who mooch off the system, despite abusing it herself, he exhibits the community as hypocritical. Revealing the fallacy of the survey adds credible support to his conclusion that "many folks talk about work more than they actually work." However, Vance then juxtaposes his former claim by stating that "it's too easy to blame" laziness on the lack of work. By setting up this contrast, Vance informs the audience that it is not a one-sided issue with no simple solution. The conflict between the idea of being hardworking and the reality of unemployment has proven to be another weight on the next generation of hillbillies. Author J.D. Vance’s memoir illustrates his perception of the hillbilly culture through both statistics and his personal experiences while living in Middletown. Through his didactic and introspective tone, the reader is able to understand Vance’s overall idea of the hillbillies: they are people of the working class who had everyone to blame for their problems except for themselves, although he goes on to explain that not every hillbilly does such, for example, his Mawmaw and Pawpaw. However, if the community fails to move towards self-improvement they are doomed to remain in a never-ending cycle of self destruction.
In Ron Koertge’s “First Grade”, the author employs indirect characterization and foreshadows the affects of education by describing the speaker’s initial thoughts and beliefs and by writing in the past tense to show how education can limit students’ minds and rob them of their vitality.
Students are always taught about slavery, segregation, war, and immigration, but one of the least common topics is farm women in the 1930’s. Lou Ann Jones, author of Mama Learned Us to Work, portrayed a very clear and clean image to her readers as to what the forgotten farm-women during the 1930’s looked like. This book was very personal to me, as I have long listened to stories from my grandmother who vividly remembers times like these mentioned by Jones. In her book Mama Learned Us to Work, author Lou Ann Jones proves that farm women were a major part of Southern economy throughout the content by the ideology and existence of peddlers, the chicken business, and linen production.
In order to understand Mike Rose, and his book Lives on the Boundary, you must first understand where Mike is coming from and examine his past. Mike was born to a first generation immigrant family, originally from Italy. He spent his early childhood in the mid-west and then in his latter childhood, parents not knowing any better, in East Los Angeles. Mike’s father suffered from arteriosclerosis. Neither Mike’s mother nor his father had completed high school and no one in his family had ever attended college. This is the setting, background, and characters of Mike’s tale of “struggles and achievements of America’s educationally underprepared” . Through this book Mike constantly is emphasizing three main themes. First, the importance of an educational mentor; later in this treatise we will examine several of Mike’s mentors. Second, social injustices in the American education system; specifically the lack of funding and bureaucracy’s affect on the public educational system. Third and lastly, specific teaching methods that Mike has used to reach out to kids on the boundary.
“Burning Bright: The Language and Storytelling of Appalachia and the Poetry and Prose of Ron Rash.” Shepard University. 2011. The.
Poverty can be a terrible thing. It can shape who you are for better or for worse. Although it may seem awful while you experience it, poverty is never permanent. In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which takes place in Alabama in the middle of the Great Depression, Walter Cunningham and Burris Ewell are both in a similar economic state. Both of their families have very little money; however, they way they manage handle themselves is very different. In this essay, I will compare Walter Cunningham and Burris Ewell’s physical appearance and hygiene, their views on education, and their manners and personalities.
In the world of Appalachia, stereotypes are abundant. There are stories told of mountaineers as lazy, bewildered, backward, and yet happy and complacent people. Mountain women are seen as diligent, strong, hard willed, and overall sturdy and weathered, bearing the burden of their male counterparts. These ideas of mountain life did not come out of thin air; they are the direct product of sensational nineteenth century media including print journalism and illustrative art that has continuously mislead and wrongfully represented the people of Appalachia. These stories, written and told by outsiders, served very little purpose to Appalachian natives other than means of humiliation and degradation. They served mostly to convince readers of the need for so-called civilized people and companies to take over the land and industry of the region, in particular the need for mineral rights, railroads, and logging as the mountain folk were wasting those valuable resources necessary for the common good.
In the book Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina, education, and the lack there of, plays one of the largest roles in the character's lives. At this time in West Virginia, where the book is set, many children had to leave school and actually go into the coalmines, as Rondal Lloyd did, or work on the family farm. Racial ignorance is also a key element Giardina confronts in the novel. The characters, chief and secondary, equally cultural and racially bland, pass on their beliefs and therefore help to maintain the continuous circle of inequality that carries on even today. Political knowledge, at least on the national and state level, is also lacking within the little town of Annadel. With this knowledge coupled with her own experiences from growing up as an immigrants daughter in the same coalfields as her novels characters, Denise Giardina tries to explain the function of education and ignorance in not only the coalfields of West Virginia, but throughout the entire world.
The average human would think that going to school and getting an education are the two key items needed to make it in life. Another common belief is, the higher someone goes with their education, the more successful they ought to be. Some may even question if school really makes anyone smarter or not. In order to analyze it, there needs to be recognition of ethos, which is the writer 's appeal to their own credibility, followed by pathos that appeals to the writer’s mind and emotions, and lastly, logos that is a writer’s appeal to logical reasoning. While using the three appeals, I will be analyzing “Against School” an essay written by John Taylor Gatto that gives a glimpse of what modern day schooling is like, and if it actually help kids
...eral topic of school. The sister strives to graduate and go to school even though she is poor while her brother blames the school for him dropping out and not graduating. “I got out my social studies. Hot legs has this idea of a test every Wednesday” (118). This demonstrates that she is driven to study for class and get good grades while her brother tries to convince her that school is worth nothing and that there is no point in attending. “‘Why don’t you get out before they chuck you out. That’s all crap,’ he said, knocking the books across the floor. ‘You’ll only fail your exam and they don’t want failures, spoils their bloody numbers. They’ll ask you to leave, see if they don’t’” (118). The brother tries to convince his sister that school is not a necessity and that living the way he does, being a drop out living in a poverty stricken family is the best thing.
The life in the wilderness and the continuing isolation of Appalachian people has made us different from most other Americans. The Appalachian value system that influences attitudes and behavior is diff...
To the modern white women who grew up in comfort and did not have to work until she graduated from high school, the life of Anne Moody reads as shocking, and almost too bad to be true. Indeed, white women of the modern age have grown accustomed to a certain standard of living that lies lightyears away from the experience of growing up black in the rural south. Anne Moody mystifies the reader in her gripping and beautifully written memoir, Coming of Age in Mississippi, while paralleling her own life to the evolution of the Civil Rights movement. This is done throughout major turning points in the author’s life, and a detailed explanation of what had to be endured in the name of equality.
Waller, Altina. "Two Words in the Tennessee Mountains: Exploring the Origins of Appalachian Stereotypes." Journal of Social History 32 (1999): 963.
Saulny, S. Black and White and Married in the Deep South: A Shifting Image. 2011. Class
In the early 1900s, the American South had very distinctive social classes: African Americans, poor white farmers, townspeople, and wealthy aristocrats. This class system is reflected in William Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay Dying, where the Bundrens a poor, white family, are on a quest to bury their now deceased wife and mother, Addie in the town of Jefferson. Taking a Marxist criticism approach to As I Lay Dying, readers notice how Faulkner’s use of characterization reveals how country folk are looked down upon by the wealthy, upper class townspeople.
Jean Louise “Scout” and Jem Finch experienced life in the 1930’s living in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. Their childhood was a nonstop adventure that brought jocund days and testing trials that teenager’s today experience even with the world around us changing every day. The moral upbringings, educational importance, and the crime rate of small towns all contributed to the childhood memories that were built every day in Maycomb County. These attributes to childhood experiences have changed a lot over the vast time period between the 1930’s and 2000’s. The moral upbringings are different in the way that children living now are experiencing a different surrounding in their everyday life and have lost morals that were taught in the 1930’s. Education is more important now than in the 1930’s because of the many laws that have been established to keep children well educated to help them succeed. Living in a small town had many advantages like the low crime rate; crime rate has risen and caused an effect on small town life. There are many similarities as well as differences between the childhood in the 1930’s and the 2000’s. The changes that have occurred affect my life as a young Alabamian every day in many ways.