Near the beginning of the second quarter of this century, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings left the north to get away from Yankees. At least that is the only explanation offered in this personal memoir of the central Florida community by the author of The Yearling. As we enter her life she has already fallen into the pattern of far south living almost like a native. Her acceptance of this lifestyle provides the source for the book's greatness and for its flaws.
Where Cross Creek is flawed, it is seriously flawed. Where its beauty is, it is glorious. Rawlings, rather understandably so or not, falls into many old attitudes about southern blacks. She also expresses uses some quite unfortunate opinions of the local people of color
We live a leisurely life, but while our dogs lie, as we, in the sun, they are also expected to serve us, as the Negro serves.
It is impossible to make a servant of any southern white, and I rejoice in the fact.
But if we look at (most) of her statements we find that she echoes, does not create the attitudes of the local white population. The tired expression "You must look at it in the context of the time" is nonetheless true.
But I was told in the village again and again that it was not fair to the unemployed there to pay my comparatively high wages to Negroes, when white men were hungry.
The position of blacks in society seems to have been the whites' prime concern then. As such, the book reflects an era thankfully gone in terms of its racial attitudes, but as we read further and deeper, we are sad the pace of that life has passed from our range of choice.
Her use of the language and the content of the story make for an unforgettable read. Her discussion of love in the book's close predates but mirrors that of Erich Fromm and Martin Luther King Jr.
Yet when a wave of love takes over a human being, love of another human being, love of nature, love of all mankind, love of the universe, such an exaltation takes him that he knows he has put his finger on the pulse of the great secret and the great answer.
Those of us of the south must come to face the past and not bury
it. It is only within this century that such attitudes were restricted
to southern literature. In the nineteenth, they were pervasive of
most American works. Witness the recent Urban League denunciation
of Huckleberry Finn. Rather than be revisionist, we should use these
works to learn and vow never to repeat past mistakes. What advances,
what literature, what what have we missed because an entire group of Americans
were held down simply because of their skin color? Let us be contrite,
but let us not discard a generation's literature because of it.
© 1998 by Ernest W. Seckinger Jr