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Bastard Out Of Carolina

            The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines moral as "conforming to a standard of right behavior and or being capable of right and wrong action" (481). Yet who is to say what actions are perceived as either right or wrong? Is someone who discovers that too little was taken out of his or her paycheck for federal taxes an immoral person just because they do not report it? A percentage of people would answer yes to this question, while others would disagree and say that "they caught a break". Some people would say that a woman who has an abortion is immoral, while others would contend that it is her right to choose. These are just a few examples of how people's opinions can differ on what it is right and wrong. Yet most people can agree that the behavior exhibited by characters in Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina, can at best be described as questionable. .
             The character whose morals are obviously the most twisted, so much so that he comes across as malicious and evil, is Glen Waddell. He constantly lets his temper get the best of him, causing violent outbursts in the workplace that cost him numerous jobs. However, this is nothing compared to the mental and physical torment that he inflicts on Bone. He starts this method of abuse by sexually molesting Bone when she is nine years old in the parking lot of the hospital where her mother is giving birth (46-47). It then escalates into his constantly telling her that she is good for nothing and beating her for the most minor infractions (234). After years of this abuse the violence comes to its peak with a horrifying and brutal rape in which he tells Bone that he prayed for her to die and he would kill her if Anney did not come back to him (283). Anyone who can say that this is a man of sound mind should be locked in a cell along with him. .
             Another character in the novel whose morals seem unintelligible is Bone's mother Anney Boatwright.


Essays Related to Bastard Out Of Carolina

1. An Interpretation of Bastard out of Carolina

Dorothy Allison's Bastard out of Carolina paints a colorful picture with words, showing what it was like to live in the south during the 1950's. ... In the beginning of the book, Mama is determined to get the stamp of "bastard" off of Bone's, her daughter, birth certificate. ... Thus, labeling Bone a bastard to society and labeling herself inadvertently a lose woman. ... The final action of giving the birth certificate (with out the bastard) stamp on it represents Mama's freedom. Now that Bone is no longer considered a bastard it seems she feels that in return she ha...

  • Word Count: 654
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

2. Bastard out of Carolina

Bastard out of Carolina was a heartbreaking story about a child Ruth Anne or "Bone" rather. ... When Anne came to she was very upset that her child had been named a bastard, so three times after Bone's birth she tried to go to the court house and change the birth certificate, failing every time. ... Glen seemed so perfect at first, but soon after they married Anne found out he was anything but. Glen was constantly in and out of jobs, forcing Anne to be the main bread maker of the family. ... The abuse stared out as simply physical when Bone would do something to annoy Glen. ...

  • Word Count: 630
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Lit Review

There are both good and bad points within Miguel Martinez's essay, "Bastard". ... In addition, quickly points out what he believes based upon his life, "There is no biological instinct inside us saying there should be someone else". ... What made his mother tell him his father was alive and lived in South Carolina after so many years of saying he was dead? ...

  • Word Count: 752
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

4. The Vineyards of Liberty

Jackson's campaign against John Quincy Adams in 1828 was a key factor which created the pathway to the "revolt of the outs". ... Partisans of the President in turn taged Jackson as adulterer, butcher, bastard, and blasphemer. In a competition of diatribe and character, no Adams possibly would win out. Due to all this campaigning, by the late 1820's, the steadiness of South Carolina politics had altered, leading and creating the "pathway" to the revolt of the outs. ... Consequently, progressively changing away from his old nationalism, Calhoun still had to take more responsib...

  • Word Count: 539
  • Approx Pages: 2
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

5. Dorothy Allison

Dorothy Allison was born April 11, 1949, in the town of Greenville South Carolina ( ). ... "Someone should of taken us out of that home-(2). ... She went on to write the book of stories called Trash in 1988, followed by her very first novel in 1992, Bastard out of Carolina. ... This is where all her grief pours out from her growing up in "an abusive, out-of-control home-(2). "The incest, abuse, and poverty that Allison experienced as a child figure heavily in Bastard out of Carolina -(3). ...

  • Word Count: 1369
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

6. Desperation

Desperation The novel Bastard out Of Carolina by Dorothy Allison is an unraveling tale of desperation and need. The story is set in Greenville, South Carolina in the 1950's amongst the impoverished Boatwright family, where the women work hard and the men drink harder. ... And there I was-certified a bastard by the state of South Carolina."... "Every time his daddy spoke harshly to him, every time he couldn't pay the bills, every time Mamma was too tired to flatter or tease him out of his moods, Daddy Glen's eyes would turn to me and my blood would turn to ice... "Someone's...

  • Word Count: 1590
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Grade Level: High School

7. Slaughter House Five

Vonnegut, like Billy Pilgrim, emerged from a meat locker beneath a slaughterhouse into the moonscape of burned-out Dresden. ... Billy describes his entry into the army, his training as a chaplain's assistant in South Carolina, and his dazed trek behind enemy lines after the disastrous Battle of the Bulge. ... He's messily drunk, passes out, and wakes up again behind enemy lines. ...

  • Word Count: 5323
  • Approx Pages: 21
  • Grade Level: High School

8. Ku Klux Klan

This also drove out the white people who would help out the black people (such as Northern schoolteachers and other Yankees as well as carpetbag judges)... This made the Klan die out for a while. ... ""(28) When he was in a car accident and bedridden for three months, he worked out all the details of founding a new Ku Klux Klan. ... He then got out a revolver and put it on the table too. ... - The Klan organizer was told to find out the concerns of the community and offer the Klan as the solution. ...

  • Word Count: 5906
  • Approx Pages: 24
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

9. The Power of King Lear

Eliot: "I said the king was an incredibly foolish old man, which God knows he was; and that if he'd been my father I would have run away from home at the age of eight instead of waiting until I was ten...I pointed out that King Lear's opening speech was the height of idiocy. ... These accounts in effect present private life as simply superior to public life, suggesting that Lear has everything to gain and nothing to lose when he is thrust out of power. ...

  • Word Count: 8939
  • Approx Pages: 36
  • Grade Level: High School

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