Southern Discomfort by Rita Mae Brown
"Southern Discomfort" by Rita Mae Brown is a novel set in Montgomery, Alabama, during the tumultuous period between 1918 and 1929, exploring the complex socioeconomic dynamics of the time. It focuses on the lives of several women, including Banana Mae, Blue Rhonda, and Hortensia Banastre, revealing the stark contrasts between their choices and societal perceptions. Banana Mae and Blue Rhonda, both prostitutes, navigate their lives with a sense of honesty and loyalty, while Hortensia, who is trapped in a loveless marriage, relies on duplicity to maintain her social standing. The narrative juxtaposes the Banastre family's facade of wealth and respectability against the more genuine relationship of Placide and Ada Jinks, an African American couple who embody mutual respect despite societal challenges. The intersection of their lives brings to light issues of race, class, and the pursuit of affection in a rigid social structure. Central to the story is Catherine Jinks-Banastre, a child born from a brief union that transcends racial boundaries, symbolizing the hope for a more inclusive and understanding South. Brown's work explores themes of love, honor, and the moral complexities that often exist at different societal levels, creating a rich tapestry that reflects both personal and collective struggles.
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Subject Terms
Southern Discomfort by Rita Mae Brown
First published: 1982
The Work
The socioeconomic extremes of Montgomery, Alabama, between 1918 and 1929 are represented in Southern Discomfort by such women as Banana Mae, Blue Rhonda, and Hortensia Banastre. Blue Rhonda and Banana Mae rent their bodies, in exchange for financial security, as independent entrepreneurs; Hortensia barters her sexual favors as Mrs. Carwyn Banastre. The difference is perhaps only one of degree, but on such subtle distinctions entire social systems are created.
Banana Mae and Blue Rhonda are prostitutes, and thus beneath contempt. They nevertheless lead lives based on honesty and loyalty, but Hortensia must regularly depend on duplicity and hypocrisy. Banana Mae and Blue Rhonda may be purchased for a time by all and sundry. Hortensia is another piece of property to be publicly exhibited alongside Carwyn Banastre’s sons and his matched chestnut horses.
The Banastre marriage is a polite fiction that owes its continuation to habit and the need to preserve appearances. Their union stands in contrast to that of Placide and Ada Jinks. Hortensia and Carwyn Banastre symbolize the process of marital decay; Placide and Ada exemplify the more sublime aspects of the matrimonial continuum. Placide and Ada are respectful of themselves and each other. Hortensia and Carwyn pursue parallel disinterested lives. The Banastres are admired because they are rich and white, but the Jinks are simply prosperous and African American.
Under normal circumstances, the lives of the Banastres and the Jinkses would not intersect in anything other than a cursory way. Hortensia, however, having lived into her middle years largely bereft of affection, even toward her sons, unexpectedly discovers Hercules Jinks. Hercules dies shortly thereafter in a freak accident, but the union across the color barrier produces a child. The child’s parental composition threatens the social order.
Edward and Paris Banastre are the biological consequences of a loveless marriage, and both are a disappointment to their parents. Paris is particularly disappointing. Catherine Jinks-Banastre, on the other hand, is the Southern discomfort of the title. She stands between two worlds and represents the hope of a better South.
Southern Discomfort is Rita Mae Brown’s further amplification of two themes first presented in a minor way in Rubyfruit Jungle (1973). One theme of Southern Discomfort is the extent to which love may, on occasion, transcend those barriers designed to separate the human community. Another theme is that honorable behavior is frequently more exalted at the bottom of the social ladder than it is at the rarified heights.
Bibliography
Chew, Martha. “Rita Mae Brown: Feminist Theorist and Southern Novelist.” In Women Writers of the Contemporary South, edited by Peggy Whitman Prenshaw. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1984.
Ward, Carol M. Rita Mae Brown. New York: Twayne, 1993.