Bastard out of Carolina

The second question being considered during this unit is: What does the way women are depicted in contemporary fiction say about our culture and identity? Evaluate the purpose of presenting women in this way in your novel.

 Women in Bastard Out of Carolina are strong willed and tough. Bone says at one point something to the effect of the Boatwright women being just as strong as the men. In this way, she means not that the women have the physical strength of the men, but that the women are shrewd and clever, using their minds to outwit the men around them. In that way, they are just as strong as the men.

Bone’s family is poor. To society, her family is seen as a bunch of criminals and drunks, barely able to make ends meet. Maybe they’re right. Bone sways between hating her family and financial situation to being immensely proud of her family. She knows that he family is not normal or perfect. However, they are her family, and since Bone has little friends, they turn out to be the only people she has, even if she can’t always count on them.

Also, the women in the Boatwright family do not embody the ‘perfect’ example of women. They are loud and rambunctious, spitting and yelling as well as the men do. Boatwright women are made long and lanky; “…born to be worked to death, used up, and thrown away” (206). The ideal woman is the one Bone reads about in stories, with pretty pink cheeks and wispy hair. Boatwright women are hard. They could be considered pretty back when they were young, but they age fast and lose their beauty. After their babies are born and their husbands gone away, they settle into that Boatwright look. “‘Now you look like a Boatwright,’ she said, ‘Now you got the look. You’re as old as you’re ever gonna get, girl. This is the way you’ll look till you die’” (8).

Society’s women are pretty and proper. They don’t mess around with boys, make babies, and leave their husbands for days before coming back. Bone’s family is unconventional. She knows she’ll end up being just the same. There’s no way around it. When she grows up, she’ll be just like them; just like she is at the end of the novel. That was why she had a desire to be a boy when she was younger. For them, at least, they have freedom. A woman has her tongue and her wit, but she’ll be used up anyway and tossed aside.