Mae Beckmann

Date of Award

2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Clark, Maribeth

Keywords

American South, Larry Brown, The Drive-By Truckers

Area of Concentration

Humanities

Abstract

Since the days of Jim Crow and segregation, the American South has been shifting its identity. Through literature and music, an understanding may be constructed as to how some Southerners see this region today. To understand this new view, this thesis focuses on the novel Fay (2000), by Mississippi author Larry Brown and the music album Southern Rock Opera (2001), by the Drive-By Truckers. These two works are connected in regard to the motif of the road and its duality as a promise of redemption and tool of entrapment for the working-class Southerners who find themselves in it. Ideally, the road offers a path to transformation, escape, hope, and glory for the struggling men and women. It also holds dangerous pitfalls in locations that have been forgotten by those who now pass remnants of the old South quickly on interstate highways. Despite the obstacles, Brown's and the Truckers' roads symbolize a way for the New South, haunted by an painful past of bigotry and stubbornness, to shoot down misconceptions and reach for a better future.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida Libraries, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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