From the Suwanee to Egypt, There's No Place Like Home

PMLA, Vol. 115, Pp. 75-88, 2000

Posted: 14 Jul 2000

Abstract

Both Zora Neale Hurston's "Seraph on the Suwanee" (1948) and Carolyn Chute's "The Beans of Egypt, Maine" (1985) feature white working-class women negotiating class hierarchies in rural communities. Despite contemporary critics' putative concern with class and demonstrated concern with Hurston's other works, particularly "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (1937), both novels have been largely ignored by the critical establishment, in part because readers find it difficult to identify with the main characters.

Comparing the critical reception of Seraph, The Beans, and Their Eyes reveals the mechanism by which readers identify with imaginary characters is constituted by middle-class reading practices. While a sympathetic audience emerged for Their Eyes, one is not likely to appear for the other two novels, which expose the class-bound roots of the literary construction of identity, meaning and reality. In addition, Seraph and The Beans point, however obliquely, toward a vernacular notion of home that resists middle-class commodification.

Suggested Citation

Ward, Cynthia, From the Suwanee to Egypt, There's No Place Like Home. PMLA, Vol. 115, Pp. 75-88, 2000, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=224152

Cynthia Ward (Contact Author)

University of Hawaii ( email )

Department of English
Honolulu, HI 96822
United States
(808) 956-3047 (Phone)
(808) 956-3083 (Fax)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Abstract Views
1,134
PlumX Metrics