Final Feeder 3.1

The Detrimental Effects of Outdated and Misinterpreted Tradition

The price of outdated and misinterpreted tradition can potentially be a high one. For some, the price of upholding those traditions overrides their own happiness or even in some instances, takes away their lives. In the South, many lay prey to the potential price of traditions such as the Confederacy and marriage. Those traditions, once meant to evoke pride and honor, serve in contemporary times as a grievance to those who attempt to uphold them. As seen in the texts, Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz and Drawing Names by Bobbie Ann Mason, outdated, misinterpreted traditions such as the Confederacy and marriage serve to be detrimental and devastating to those who the tradition no longer proves as pertinent.
In the chapter Cats of the Confederacy, Horowitz gives an account of the southern tradition of upholding the Confederacy in Salisbury, North Carolina. In his account of Salisbury, he describes a married couple, Sue and Ed Curtis, who religiously uphold the tradition of the Confederacy. Sue, head of the local chapter of United Daughters of the Confederacy, and Ed, member of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, commit their lives for the continuance of the Confederacy. As said in the Sons of the Confederate Veterans pledged allegiance, Sue and Ed, “...salute the Confederate with flag affection, reverence and undying devotion to the Cause for which it stands,” (Horwitz 23-24). Their salute to the rebel flag, Confederate flag, is symbolic of their devotion to the Confederacy; their devotion to tradition. Their devotion of upholding the tradition of the Confederacy is a result of pride in their family history. When asked by Horowitz why she felt Southerners still cared about the Civil war, Sue replied, “The answer is family. We grow up knowing who’s once removed and six times down. Northerners say, ‘Forget the War, it’s over.’ But they don’t have the family Bibles we do, filled with all these kinfolk who went off to war and died. We’ve lost so much,” (Horwitz 26). This pride in family and the sacrifice for the cause they gave during the Civil War causes for southerners like Sue to uphold the tradition of the Confederacy without acknowledging the beliefs that the Confederacy stood for. The Confederacy, which ones stood for the continuance of slavery, has become an outdated (with the end of the Civil War and loss of the Confederacy) and misinterpreted tradition, and is now synonymous with pride, courage, and sacrifice of family for “the Cause”.
This blind loyalty to tradition without understanding the true connotations of the Confederacy prove to be detrimental, causing for racial tensions and devastating repercussions. While the rebel flag may represent pride in their family for their involvement in the Civil war to white southerners such as Sue and Ed, the African Americans of the town see it is an insult and representative of enslavement. As stated by Michael King, the young preacher of Salisbury’s African American church, “Remember your ancestors […] but remember what they fought for too, and recognize it was wrong,” (Horwitz 44). The difference in perspective of the tradition of the Confederacy causes for racial tension. In the chapter Dying for Dixie, the racial tension that occurs from a white young man’s misinterpretations of tradition results in the loss of his life. Due to the presence of the rebel flag on his truck, Michael Westerman was shot and killed. While many maintained that he was an avid Confederate, the truth of the matter was he truly did not believe in traditional, Confederate interpretation of the rebel flag. According to Sarah, Michael Westerman’s wife’s sister, “The flag was a symbol of him […] He was a rebel, a daredevil, outspoken. He’d do anything,’ (Horwitz 108). The presence and importance of the flag passed down to Westerman through tradition and not maintain its original meaning. Furthermore, the shooter Freddie Morrow as well did not know what the true meaning of the flag was.
What exactly did the flag mean to him? Freddie shrugged and looked at me impassively. ‘I thought it was just the Dukes of Hazzard sign […] After moving to Guthrie, he gradually began to sense whites’ attachment to the flag and blacks’ hostility toward what they considered a symbol of slavery […] To him, the banner was simply something whites knew black hated. He suspected whites brandished the flag as sort of a schoolyard taunt, ‘just doing it out of spite, to see what we would do’”
(Horwitz 116)
As Freddie spent more time in the South, he learned that the flag symbolized not as a rebel cause, but as perpetuation of the enslavement of his people and as instigation. Whether the tradition of the Confederacy, as symbolized by the rebel flag was misinterpreted (as seen through Westerman), or no longer served a purpose or was appropriate in modern day (as seen through Morrow), serves as unimportant . The importance although are the consequences of that misinterpretation. For Michael Westerman, it meant the end of his life via death and for Freddie Morrow, the end of his life via jail-two devastating consequences of tradition.
Though the detrimental effects of outdated and misinterpreted tradition are not seen through racial tensions, Bobby Ann Mason’s Drawing Names shows the detrimental effects of tradition through marriage. As prominent as upholding the Confederacy is a tradition in southern culture, marriage as well proves as a perhaps even stronger southern tradition. To be married, and to maintain ones marriage at all costs, even one’s own happiness, is highly revered in southern culture. In Drawing Names, a family rich in southern culture, the father dislike of the protagonist Carolyn Sisson’s divorce is expressed, “He was a shy man, awkward with his daughters, and Carolyn knew he had been deeply disappointed over her failed marriage although he had never said so,” (Mason 93). Due to the intensity of the tradition, Carolyn’s sister Iris’ faked being happy in her marriage in order to uphold the tradition for her parents. “Ray and me’s [Iris] getting a separation […] The thing of it is, I had to beg him to come today, for Mom and Dad’s sake. It’ll kill them. Don’t let on, will you?” (Mason 98). The importance of upholding the tradition transcends Iris’ own happiness, so much in fact that she is willing to put on a façade for her parents who belief strongly in tradition. The tradition of upholding her marriage no longer proves as advantageous and is actually detrimental. In order to keep up the appearance of a happy marriage and hide her separation for the sake of tradition, Iris suffers through unhappiness and even lies to her own family.
The price of upholding outdated and misinterpreted tradition proves to be a costly and futile. Through the texts Confederates in the Attic and Drawing Name, happiness and even one’s own life are sacrificed for the preservation of traditions that do not necessarily reflect the present. Those traditions, meant to retain the importance and meaning that they were once associated with such as a belief in marriage, now serve to place pressure on the individuals whose lives no longer reflect those traditions and ultimately prove to be a disservice to the individuals involved.



Works Cited
Horwitz, Tony. Confederates in the Attic. New York: Vintage, 1998
Mason, Bobby Ann. Shiloh and other Stories. New York: Harper and Row c1982