42 pages • 1 hour read
Cassie Dandridge SelleckThe Pecan Man
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaBackground
Literary Context: Southern Literature
Southern literature generally refers to literature written by authors who hail from the American South or literature that is set there. Southern literature demonstrates the ways that geographical identity, with its particular cultures, histories, landscapes, and traditions, shapes the people who live there. Family, race, class, community, and memory are frequent topics in this genre, and works often reflect themes of pride, identity, and religious belief (“What Makes Southern Literature Its Own Genre?” Deep South Magazine, 2 July 2021).
Southern literature frequently examines how the region’s legacy of slavery and discrimination has affected both Black and white Southerners. Southern identity, shaped by the legacies of enslavement of Black people, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow, is often at the heart of Southern literature as writers grapple with the history, traditions, and culture of this region. The continued oppression of Black Americans and lingering racism are frequently at the forefront of such literature for white and Black authors alike. In The Pecan Man, though state-sanctioned racial segregation has ended, the residents of Mayville maintain unspoken boundaries of white and Black neighborhoods. In the novel, set in 1976, crossing those boundaries or challenging the norm is socially unacceptable.
The Pecan Man fits comfortably within the genre of Southern literature because of Selleck’s focus on family, sense of place, history, secrets, and the complexities of race relations. Other renowned Southern writers include Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner, Harper Lee, Mark Twain, Carson McCullers, Truman Capote, Ralph Ellison, Tennessee Williams, and Zora Neale Hurston.
Socio-Historical Context: Racial Inequality and Disparity
The events of The Pecan Man reflect the longstanding racial inequality and racial tension in America. The enslavement of African Americans reverberates into the 20th and 21st centuries, affecting Black Americans in numerous ways. When slavery was abolished in 1865, people in the South struggled to find a new identity and way of life and resented Northern “carpetbaggers” who came to the South to exploit the uncertain economy and promote the interests of formerly enslaved people. In response, Southern states, in particular, institutionalized racist practices, such as the Jim Crow laws. These were a series of laws legalizing racial segregation and were designed to keep African Americans in positions of poverty. They denied Black Americans the right to vote, hold specific jobs, receive an education, buy property in white neighborhoods, and use public facilities. These laws were enacted in some instances immediately after the Civil War and lasted until 1968. Thus, the 1976 setting of The Pecan Man reverberates with the legacy of such unjust laws.
Indeed, it was not until the 1950s and 1960s that the civil rights movement got underway, seeking to abolish legal practices that kept African Americans in positions of poverty and powerlessness. The civil rights movement challenged many of the institutionalized practices of segregation, which legally mandated separate facilities for Black and white people. Many Southern businesses, such as restaurants and hotels, refused to serve Black patrons, and Black citizens were denied equal access to public facilities and transportation. Even after the Civil Rights Act of 1968, many Southerners refused to accept the ideals of racial equality. Set less than a decade after this legislation, The Pecan Man addresses racial equity in the justice system and lingering racism among Southern white people.
