Affection, Not Scorn: Readers of a Best-Selling Novel, Rural White Characters, and the Politics of Public Relief

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dc.contributor.authorSatterwhite, Emily M.en
dc.date.accessioned2025-01-31T14:50:50Zen
dc.date.available2025-01-31T14:50:50Zen
dc.date.issued2022-07-01en
dc.description.abstractLiterary historians note that Jesse Stuart’s impetus for his satirical portrait of a hill-country clan in his 1943 novel Taps for Private Tussie was his scorn for government aid. Close readings support a common interpretation of the cultural work performed by the novel: that it ridicules the Tussie clan and links welfare programs to laziness. A reception study of Stuart’s archived correspondence, however, indicates that Stuart’s fans read his characters as pastoral, authentic, and endearing. Readers’ bemused and antimodernist appreciation for white hill people, understood as a category apart, transpired as part of Americans’ imaginations of race and poverty and attitudes toward public policy. In some cases, readers’ jealousy of the Tussies hint at an anti-capitalist stirring. Insights drawn from a combination of close reading, reader reception analysis, and attention to public policy over time suggest just how much the study of fiction and its audiences matters.en
dc.description.versionAccepted versionen
dc.format.extentPages 61-88en
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.5325/reception.14.1.0061en
dc.identifier.eissn2155-7888en
dc.identifier.issn2168-0604en
dc.identifier.orcidSatterwhite, Emily [0000-0002-6799-3911]en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10919/124461en
dc.identifier.volume14en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherThe Pennsylvania State University Pressen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectliterary reception studiesen
dc.subjectwelfareen
dc.subjectpovertyen
dc.subjectJesse Stuarten
dc.subjectAppalachian fictionen
dc.titleAffection, Not Scorn: Readers of a Best-Selling Novel, Rural White Characters, and the Politics of Public Reliefen
dc.title.serialReception: Texts, Readers, Audiences, Historyen
dc.typeArticle - Refereeden
dc.type.dcmitypeTexten
dc.type.otherJournal Articleen
pubs.organisational-groupVirginia Techen
pubs.organisational-groupVirginia Tech/All T&R Facultyen
pubs.organisational-groupVirginia Tech/Liberal Arts and Human Sciencesen
pubs.organisational-groupVirginia Tech/Liberal Arts and Human Sciences/Religion and Cultureen
pubs.organisational-groupVirginia Tech/Liberal Arts and Human Sciences/CLAHS T&R Facultyen

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