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2016 | 64 | 11: Anglica | 171-186

Article title

The Whistle Stop Café as a challenge to the Jim Crow bipartition of society in Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café

Title variants

PL
Kawiarnia Whistle Stop jako sprzeciw wobec rasowego podziału w powieści Fannie Flagg Smażone zielone pomidory

Languages of publication

EN

Abstracts

EN
The American South’s social order, based as it was on white supremacy and subordination of women, is reflected in the space of the café in Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café. The titular café run by two white women, Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison, becomes a site of contestation of that very social order. In the early 1930s Idgie and Ruth, the main heroines in Flagg’s novel, move out of their respective homes into the back of the café, which will offer its services till 1969. Their decision to run a café together has a twofold significance: they reject/transcend domesticity, a socially prescribed space for women, and they act on their increased sensitivity to help the disempowered and oppressed—the black and the poor—during the Jim Crow period. The ownership and management of the café allows Idgie and Ruth to negotiate and redefine their identities in the context of racial oppression and subordination of white women.
PL
Porządek społeczny Amerykańskiego Południa, oparty na supremacji białych oraz podporządkowaniu kobiet, znajduje odzwierciedlenie w przestrzeni kawiarni w powieści Fannie Flagg Smażone zielone pomidory. Tytułowa kawiarnia prowadzona przez dwie białe kobiety, Idgie Threadgoode i Ruth Jamison, staje się miejscem kontestacji właśnie tego porządku społecznego. Na początku lat 30. XX w. Idgie i Ruth, główne bohaterki powieści Flagg, wyprowadzają się ze swoich domów, aby zamieszkać razem na tyłach kawiarni, która będzie działać do 1969 r. Decyzja, aby otworzyć kawiarnię, ma podwójne znaczenie: bohaterki odrzucają / wykraczają poza przynależność do zacisza domowego, społecznie przypisywanego kobietom, ponadto – w czasach gdy prawa „Jim Crow” regulowały zinstytucjonalizowaną segregację rasową – postępują zgodnie z empatyczną wrażliwością społeczną, nakazującą im pomagać zarówno uciskanym czarnoskórym, jak i ubogim białym mieszkańcom miasteczka. Prowadzenie kawiarni pozwala Idgie i Ruth negocjować i na nowo zdefiniować własną tożsamość w kontekście sprzeciwu wobec ucisku rasowego oraz męskiej dominacji nad kobietą.

Year

Volume

64

Issue

Pages

171-186

Physical description

Contributors

  • Department of American Literature and Culture, Institute of English Studies, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin

References

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Document Type

Publication order reference

Identifiers

YADDA identifier

bwmeta1.element.desklight-5a499bc1-73a1-49df-8915-fcee5cc08493
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