Tradition and Identity Reevaluated

One of the prominent trends in modern and contemporary southern writing is the challenging and repudiation of tradition and the concomitant reevaluation of personal identity. Focusing on one of the following texts—the excerpts from Walker’s “Everyday Use,” Wright's “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow,”or Ransom’s “Old Mansion, indicate how the author challenges southern tradition and rescripts the notion of southern identity in the process. Limit your response to 250 words and sign your name. All responses must be posted by 9 am on Thursday, March 25, 2010.

As I Lay Dying: Perspectives of Peripheral Characters

While most of the interior monologues in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying come from Bundren family members, an expression of their innermost thoughts, others come from the viewpoint of outsiders—peripheral characters— who observe and comment on the actions of the Bundrens. Such characters are either the Bundren’s neighbors or townsfolk. Using a single monologue of one of the eight peripheral voices in the novel (Cora Tull, Tull, Samson, Armstid, Whitfield, Doc Peabody, Moseley, or MacGowan), carefully analyze it in terms of the following: (1) The view of or attitude toward the Bundrens , (2) Relationship of the character to the Bundrens,and (3)How what the character says affects the reader’s perspective of the Bundrens. Your response should not exceed 250 words and must be posted no later than 9 am, March 18, 2010. BE SURE TO SIGN YOUR POST.