Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell
"Tobacco Road" is a novel by Erskine Caldwell that explores the dire circumstances of the Lester family, who struggle against poverty in the rural South during the Great Depression. Central to the narrative are five main characters: Jeeter, the family patriarch deeply attached to farming despite its futility; Ada, his snuff-addicted wife suffering from malnutrition; an elderly mother reduced to scavenging; Ellie May, their daughter with limited marriage prospects due to her physical appearance; and Dude, their son who seeks an escape through a relationship with an older woman. The novel presents a stark portrait of desperation and survival, highlighting the impact of societal neglect on individuals stripped of dignity and hope.
Upon its release, "Tobacco Road" elicited a wide range of responses, with many critics praising it as a significant work of social realism that called for government action for the rural impoverished. Conversely, some readers, particularly from Caldwell's native Georgia and other Southern states, found the portrayal of the characters' sexual behaviors and moral ambiguity to be offensive, prompting efforts to censor the book and restrict its distribution. Overall, "Tobacco Road" serves as a powerful commentary on the human condition amid systemic adversity.
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Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell
Identification Novel about sharecroppers in the agrarian South
Author Erskine Caldwell
Date Published in 1932
Thanks to the book’s enormous readership and overwhelmingly positive critical reception, the term “tobacco road” was added to the popular lexicon. The title of Erskine Caldwell’s novel became synonymous with the worst conditions experienced by dirt-poor tenant farmers during the Great Depression.
Tobacco Road dramatizes the collective predicament of the Lester family who cling stubbornly to the bottom rung of an economic system that no longer affords them minimum subsistence. The five main characters include Jeeter, the patriarch of the clan who nurtures an almost primordial attachment to tilling the soil despite the fact that sharecroppers like him have no chance to make a profit; his snuff-addicted wife, Ada, who suffers from pellagra and obsesses about acquiring a “stylish” dress in which to be buried; his elderly mother, who is reduced to foraging for food because the rest of the family has written her off as a noncontributing member; his sexually charged daughter, Ellie May, whose harelip has diminished her chances for marriage; and his sixteen-year-old son, Dude, who acquiesces to the marriage plans of an older woman, a self-proclaimed preacher named Sister Bessie, so that he can drive her new automobile and honk the horn. Theirs is a group portrait of what happens to human beings without a social safety net, who have been reduced by hunger, fear, and prejudice to their basest animal instincts.
Impact
From the moment of its publication, the novel inspired widely divergent reactions. Most critics hailed the book as a landmark volume of social realism and a clarion call for government intervention on behalf of the rural poor against their uncaring absentee landlords. However, many readers, especially those from the author’s home state of Georgia and other parts of the South, were repelled by Caldwell’s unflattering depiction of the characters’ shocking sexual mores and deplorable lack of moral compass. This latter reaction led to attempts to censor the book and boycott its sale.
Bibliography
Cook, Sylvia Jenkins. From Tobacco Road to Route Sixty-six: The Southern Poor White in Fiction. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1976.
McDonald, Robert L., ed. Reading Erskine Caldwell: New Essays. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006.
Rubin, Louis. “Trouble in the Land: Southern Literature and the Great Depression.” In Literature at the Barricades: The American Writer in the 1930’s, edited by Ralph Bogardus and Fred Hobson. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1982.
Silver, Andrew. “Laughing over Lost Causes: Erskine Caldwell’s Quarrel with Southern Humor.” Mississippi Quarterly 50 (Winter, 1996-1997): 51-69.