HISTORY AND MEMORY IN THE OLD SOUTH: CONSTRUCTIONS OF FEMALE IDENTITY IN KATHERINE ANNE PORTER’S THE OLD ORDER
HISTORY AND MEMORY IN THE OLD SOUTH: CONSTRUCTIONS OF FEMALE IDENTITY IN KATHERINE ANNE PORTER’S THE OLD ORDER

Summary/Abstract: “History and Memory in the Old South: Constructions of Female Identity in Katherine Anne Porter’s The Old Order”. History and memory are, for many Southern writers, important elements in the process of shaping the Southern mind. In this context, growing up in the South is a complicated phenomenon, the young Southerner being split between pressures of the family past and traditions and his or her personal ideals. Female identity formation in the South is an even more intricate matter in a world dominated by the authority of the white male, in which white women and black slaves share, in different degrees, a submissive position and are forced to cope with this situation. The purpose of the paper is to examine the construction of female identity in the old South, as it was depicted by Katherine Anne Porter in the collection of short stories The Old Order.

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