Bastard Out Of Carolina

When Bone (Ruthe Anne) is born, Anney is unconscious and is not able to lie to the doctors in order to obtain a birth certificate that lists her as married. She cares deeply about how she is perceived, and not wanting to be thought “trash,” she would have preferred that her daughter be marked legitimate on her birth certificate. She visits the courthouse over and over in order to try to get the distinction changed, without luck. Anney’s sensitivity to being called “trash” is rooted in the very real instances of class-based discrimination which she, a working poor woman, faces repeatedly both during her own adolescence and during the years she spends waitressing while struggling to make ends meet. Bone, too, feels the sting of being called “trash,” and she can be observed having to deal with this prejudice both at school and at the hands of her friends and their families.

Class, particularly as it intersects with gender, is one of Dorothy Allison’s key thematic interests, and it runs through the entirety of her body of work. The theme of The Intersections of Class and Gender in Bastard out of Carolina, which the motif the birth certificate speaks to, is observable in both the experiences of characters like Anney and Bone, and in the relationships that these characters have with various members of their family and community.