glorify the good and ignore the bad in ourselves.” (20) J.D. Vance introduces his readers to a world which many didn’t know existed, the world of white working class people, known as hillbillies, living in Rust Belt towns. Vance gives an inside look by telling stories of his life that are common circumstances in the hillbilly society. But as he says in the quote above, humans, no matter their race, background, or hometown, have a tendency to stretch the truth. Often we avoid putting ourselves or those
The multidimensional expression “hillbilly” carries different cultural significances throughout the book Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance. First, Vance utilizes the term “hillbilly” to refer to the working class white Americans of Scots-Irish descent who have no college degree (3). Second, Vance uses the term hillbilly to refer to a group of people from a specific geographic area, namely the area of the Appalachian Mountains. According to Vance, the area stretches from Alabama to Georgia in the South
Literary Analysis The memoir Hillbilly Elegy, written by J.D. Vance, is the remarkable story of a young man’s challenges of growing up in poverty. The book focuses on the difficulties that come along with living in Appalachia, and the family issues that go on as well. Living in poverty introduced Vance to a world filled with toxicity and violence. This unhealthy environment caused Vance to develop a conflict within himself, making him struggle with his self-identity. In Hillbilly Elegy, Vance uses
your chances of “political and cultural misunderstanding, and a general fear of rejection and not belonging.” Vance’s in his book Hillbilly Elegy, can help us understand some of the resentment Trump supporters have against the government and globalization. The book describes the struggles of the white working class - the hillbilly culture. Vance argues that the hillbillies blame their problems on society or the government. Partly because they feel a sense of rejection from everyone else. These were
Psychology and Politics Introduction Personal memoirs used by both J.D. Vance and Yoshino’s are basically an insight into their troubled lives, which with gradual analysis turn into an anecdotal evidence on the basis of which they form their arguments foe individual or collective liberty in the society they spent their early lives in. While Yoshino’s work is rather limited to a specific theme of a lack of liberty then wanting a right to a different life as is presented in Vance’s work. In Yoshino’s
would appeal more to the benefit of the lower class. Oddly enough though, members of rural, lower-class white communities have had the tendency to support the Republican Party in recent past elections (Kramer). J.D. Vance acknowledges in his book, “Hillbilly Elegy: a memoir of a family and culture in crisis”, that in the poverty stricken community of Jackson, Kentucky, where he grew up with his grandmother, many of the problems they faced within their rural, white community were very similar to those