Читать книгу Constructing the Self. Essays on Southern Life-Writing онлайн

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The fourth and last essay in this section takes us back to Appalachia. In this essay the concept of the performing self is implied again in Sandra Ballard’s discussion of a group of Appalachian women writers who use humor in their memoirs. Ballard explores their use of humor as a comedic mask, as a performance, that helps them negotiate painful events. In the presence of stressful or traumatic situations, these authors resort to humor not for mere entertainment but to construct a version of self that is stronger and more able to cope with adversity. According to Ballard, “Appalachian writers are adept at navigating tragedy without self-pity, masking pain, and in many cases, creating memoirs that challenge power structures and deliver painful autobiographical performances with humor.” Ballard provides numerous examples of the use of humor to counterbalance grief through the works of Harriette Arnow (Old Burnside), Lily May Ledford (Coon Creek Girl), Mary Lee Settle (Addie: A Memoir), bell hooks (Belonging: A Culture of Place), Dorothy Allison (Two or Three Things I Know for Sure), and Lee Smith (Dimestore: A Writer’s Life). These women’s autobiographical writings, according to Ballard, reveal that “humor become[s] a survival strategy,” a performance “to mask pain [and] to creatively hide dark feelings and grief.” Interestingly, Ballard finds connections between these Appalachian women writers and other southern African-American women writers, as well as between their mountain memoirs and slave narratives and black autobiographies, suggesting that they all use humor as a powerful mask of self-construction to survive “in a world that has offered them little cause for laughter.”