Bastard Out of Carolina

The two main themes seen throughout Dorothy Allison’s work are the myth of physical love and beauty, as well as the stereotype of motherhood. At one point in Bastard Out of Carolina, “Bone", the representative character of Dorothy Allison as a small child, and her family are talking about how everyone in the Boatwright family are “ugly,” “pretty ugly,” or “almost pretty.” The fact that a small child should believe that they are ugly seems to be the first huge tragedy of this story, and not only that but later on when Bone says, “Aunt Alma said love had more to with how pretty a body was then anyone would ever admit,” lays out the foundation for the reader to understand that Bone, and the children she represents, feel as if they don’t deserve to find true love, because they are “ugly.” The concept of love is skewed in such a way for these “ugly” women that even a mother would ignore the signs of need from her child to stay in what she wants to belief is a healthy relationship with love.

In the Interview with Dorothy Allison, done by Suzanne Dietzel, Allison talks about the stereotyping of southern women. This stereotype holds that mothers will starve themselves to feed their poverty stricken families, and will lash out at those same children if they fail to meet the mother's expectations. Anney, in Bastard Out of Carolina, represents that stereotype of southern women who will strive to give their children legitimacy and security at all costs, even if that means allowing the abuse of a daughter. Anney continuously tries to obtain a birth certificate that does not have the word “illegitimate” stamped across it, and only prevails once the entire court is burned to the ground. The importance for her to have a clean certificate is representative of her desire to be a successful mother. Allison reveals how shortcomings of mothers in positions out of their own control, can lead these women into desperate situations that they might refuse to get out of later on. Anney will not leave her husband, regardless of Bone’s pain and abuse, because she doesn’t want her family to be perceived as “illegitimate” again.

Dorothy Allison really deserves respect for her ability to so accurately articulate how she perceived her own childhood and how it affects everyone in her family and her life to this day. She shows a strength that few people could have, in the face of adversity shown towards such perverse situations in writing. Although the book, Bastard Out of Carolina, is only semi-autobiographical, later in her career Allison writes down the truth about her life in full detail and the courage needed to put your entire family’s dirty laundry into print for the world to see, is an incredibly inspiring thing. It takes emotion and sincerity to create a true piece of art and that is what Dorothy Allison has created, artwork in her literature that many people can relate to.