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    A Study Guide for Dorothy E. Allison's "Bastard Out of Carolina"
    A Study Guide for Dorothy E. Allison's "Bastard Out of Carolina"
    A Study Guide for Dorothy E. Allison's "Bastard Out of Carolina"
    Ebook50 pages56 minutes

    A Study Guide for Dorothy E. Allison's "Bastard Out of Carolina"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Dorothy E. Allison's "Bastard Out of Carolina," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJun 15, 2016
    ISBN9781535819183
    A Study Guide for Dorothy E. Allison's "Bastard Out of Carolina"

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      A Study Guide for Dorothy E. Allison's "Bastard Out of Carolina" - Gale

      1

      Bastard Out of Carolina

      Dorothy Allison

      1992

      Introduction

      In her discussion of Dorothy Allison's literary career in Feminist Writers, Deborah T. Meem writes, For Allison, writing is a dramatic, life-affirming act in a world which consistently threatens death. A storyteller since childhood, Allison chronicles her discovery how … writing them [her most terrible stories] down gives her power of the experiences. Dorothy Allison has never been shy about the autobiographical background of her powerful first novel Bastard Out of Carolina. Allison was born to a poor, white trash southern family. Her stepfather sexually abused her for six years starting when she was only five years old, and her mother, whom Allison deeply loved, was unable or unwilling to deal with this issue. Bastard Out of Carolina is not Allison's first important piece of writing, but for many readers, it remains her truest.

      Allison recounts the story of Ruth Anne Bone Boatwright, the illegitimate daughter of a fifteen-year-old, unmarried, uneducated waitress. Bone's mother, a child herself, desperately seeks love and familial stability, which she has never experienced in her own large, unorthodox brood of kin. Anney's need for love is so strong that she turns a blind eye to the abuse—physical, emotional, and sexual—that her second husband, Daddy Glen, heaps upon her young daughter. Before even reaching the age of thirteen, Bone has experienced a life's supply of disappointment, bitterness, self-hatred, and even hatred for her mother. If Bastard Out of Carolina sharply affects many readers because of the swell of truth behind the characters and their actions, that is partially Allison's intention. For Allison once explained what storytelling meant to her in an interview she gave to Alexis Jetter of The New York Times Magazine: I believe that storytelling can be a strategy to help you make sense of your life. It's what I've done.

      Author Biography

      Dorothy Allison was born on April 11, 1949, in Greenville, South Carolina, to a poor, unmarried fifteen-year-old girl. Her mother soon married, and when Allison was five her stepfather began sexually abusing her. This situation lasted until Allison was eleven, at which time she finally brought herself to tell a relative. Allison's mother learned of the situation and put a stop to it, but the family still stayed together.

      At the age of eighteen, Allison left home to attend college in Florida. At school she learned about and came to embrace feminism, finding that it gave her a completely different vision of the world. She lived in a lesbian-feminist commune for a period of time. She later attended graduate school in New York.

      Allison began writing seriously in the early 1980s. She published poetry and short stories, many of which dealt with sexuality and sometimes shocking issues of abuse. Her 1983 poetry collection The Women Who Hate Me angered mainstream feminists in its praise of sexual promiscuity and sadomasochism. Despite the controversy her work generated, she established a name for herself among writers of gay fiction. Her success was solidified when her 1989 short story collection Trash won the Lambda literary awards for best small press book and best lesbian book.

      Allison also began work on Bastard Out of Carolina, which has a strong and public autobiographical element. The novel, which was published

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