FAMILY TIES

Porter ingeniously illuminates the accepted Southern ideal, both negative and positive {unlike Fitzhugh and Faulkner who paint the South so negatively}. It is as though while she “tells us tales of the South” the issues of race, gender, family, freedom, family and even sexuality are broached, with humour, with irony and even a mixture of flattery and self reliance. One can picture being their as the stories happen.
We see with Uncle Jimbilly and Nannie, how freedom really is restrained after the war and emancipation. How many slaves were given this gift and did not have any idea of what to do or where to go next? Many, like Nannie and Uncle Jimbilly simply chose to stay where they were because they either had no where else to go, no skills, were attached to the land/family at the plantation or fear kept them rooted. Many slaves {such as Phyllis Wheatley at first} stayed on the farm, took their Master’s last name and continued as they were {Www.historychannel.com} Could this be another way in which the “supreme white race” further keeps slaves down, by offering freedom, but withholding supports, when many slave would need to be taught about freedom and what to do with it?
Sarah Jane, as a young woman I believe sees these inequalities and evils of society. This may be why she takes to her quiet way of rebellion and disobedience. From bonding with a slave, to working after her husband dies, managing the families affairs and resenting how her husband managed them while alive, and even breastfeeding both hers and Nannie’s infants and treating them more equally than anyone shows not only her character but her quiet determination to fight for change. She is the epitome of the Southern woman because she balances this notion so well with the expected virtues and ideals of a Southern woman, wife and mother. It was a strong woman then that is solely responsible for keeping her family together and she is shown as a hermaphrodite: filling both male and female roles. Truly extraordinary for a woman of that time to work the land, discipline slaves and children and keep the family together. In this way Sarah Jane shatters the old Southern ideas of what Woman should be and is instrumental in bringing about the “new woman” though she does not see it that way and tries to live in the past. Sarah Jane has strength, rather than softness, sensuality and disobedience in her character balancing what needs to be done with what she wants to do within her confines; the South, being a woman and a widow without a man and even being a mother. Maybe in that way, the white culture is even more bound that the slaves?!