Small towns are often considered a safe place to grow up. Many of those born in these small towns never leave, perhaps because they are too scared to leave everything they have ever known. These cities, however, are not free from problems. Small rural towns, especially in the South, carry with them the stigma of prejudice towards those who are different, which unfortunately can still be true today. In John Kennedy Toole's first novel, The Neon Bible, the negative stigma associated with small-town life is explored. Toole, being a Southern man himself, was able to show an accurate teenage vision of a rural Southern town in the 1930s. One of the main themes of Toole's novel is the prejudice that can occur in a small town and he uses his characters to present his commentary on the topic. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The first example of Toole's view on small town judgment is the town's reaction to Aunt Mae. His flashy clothes and skin exposure attract dirty looks and judgment from the woman, as well as derision from the men. David, the protagonist and Mae's nephew, remembers the time when Aunt Mae first came to live with them. He recalls: "When I was four, Mom threw a party for some workers' wives, and Aunt Mae came into the living room in the middle of the party wearing a dress that showed most of her front, except her nipples, which I knew you wouldn't have. never could show. The party ended soon after and, as I sat on the porch, I heard the women talking to each other as they left. And they called Aunt Mae all kinds of names that I had never heard before and didn't really know meaning until I was almost ten years old” (Toole 6). Toole was able to use this situation to exemplify how pitying, jealous, and superficial small-town women can be. This four-year-old was forced to hear terrible things said about his aunt that these women would never say to her face. She chose to dress differently than these judgmental women and there is nothing that unites people more than a common enemy. In a larger environment, like a city, small things, like clothes, are much more irrelevant than in small towns where there isn't much to talk about. Aunt Mae is actually a very caring and kind woman, but these small-town women judge her character based on the way she presents herself. This specific interaction with the townspeople and with Aunt Mae represents the judgment that was often a big part of the small town mentality. While the women judged Aunt Mae, the men looked at her and mocked her for having the audacity to show a little skin. David recalls: “The men were always nice, though, but they laughed at her when she wasn't there. It made me feel bad when they did it, because there wasn't a man in town that Mae didn't like” (Toole 10). Ironically, men are even more two-faced than women in this small town. They are kind and sometimes even flirtatious with her, but then they tease her behind her back. David, the narrator, looking back and remembering how terrible he felt for Aunt Mae when he was so young, makes the reader realize how judgmental the townspeople really were. Toole was able to make the reader see the ugly side of small towns with the various negative reactions towards Aunt Mae based solely on her appearance. Aunt Mae was the first grid object for the town introduced in the novel, but unfortunately she wasn't the last. David's entire familyshe was judged very harshly after David's father lost his job. David's first teacher, Mrs. Watkins, expresses to David the things that have been going around about David's family in an attempt to humiliate him. When he is late for class one day, she says, "'He's one of those poor people who lives in the hills and doesn't have the money to buy an alarm clock'" (Toole 43). Then, after David accidentally belches, Mrs. Watkins slaps him hard in the face and says, “I hope the Lord will be merciful to you for your behavior toward those who seek to instruct you in His path. You and your family are estranged Christians. You are no longer in the church records. I see it. I see all those things” (Toole 44). Mrs. Watkins is judging David's family, who barely has enough money to buy food, for no longer tithing. Toole was able to present the unspoken rules of a small-town religious society with these statements from Mrs. Watkins. While families are not obligated to donate to the church weekly, if they do not, their faith is called into question and their “sins” are judged by those who follow Jesus Christ, a man who ironically emphasized forgiveness in his teachings. Another point that often came up One of Christ's teachings was to love your neighbor, but the people of the valley were never able to illustrate that lesson. During the time of the novel, World War II was underway and many boys from the valley were drafted to fight. Some, like David's father, never returned. Others returned and married girls they had known all their lives, but there were some who returned with foreign women. When the rebirth arrives in the city, the boys of the valley had not yet returned home. Bobbie Lee Taylor, the revival speaker, voices the fears of all the mothers of soldiers in the audience by saying, "Every day more and more soldiers, sailors, marines, colonels, privates and lieutenants are dating foreign women and even they marry." ! Do you want your son to come home with a foreign wife, maybe even a pagan one? …Do you want a Chinaman in your house to take care of your grandchildren, suckle them from his breast?'” (Toole 69) Bobbie Lee Taylor may not have been from the valley, but he expressed the fears of nearly everyone in the crowd with his sermon. These people were afraid of what they didn't know, and these women from Europe and Asia that their children brought home were too different. They did not want their family bloodline to be sullied by other races and believed that these women were “pagan” only because they belonged to a different ethnicity. Toole pointed out the racist, prejudicial, and elitist mentality that was synonymous with living in a small Southern town at the time. One audience member who Bobbie Lee's speech particularly touched was Flora, a woman from the valley. After the sermon ended, Aunt Mae and Flora had a conversation about Bobbie Lee's words. David recalled, “She was worried about what Bobbie Lee had said…She told Aunt Mae she didn't want any Chinese grandkids on her lap with their dangerous-looking mother around the house” (Toole 75). No matter who the woman was or how much her son cared about her, Flora would not accept this woman her son had brought home or the children he had conceived with her. The very idea of her son marrying someone of a different race scares her enough to write him a letter warning him. Many of these small town types can be very closed minded and ignorant, using prejudice as a defense mechanism for what is different and strange to them. While some citizens, like Flora, spoke only of their fears,.
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