Reifying Lost Cause Narratives: Reading a Debate against the Southern Confederate Memorial in Faulkner and O’Connor

On August 12, 2017, in response to the announcement that the University of Virginia would be removing the Robert E. Lee monument that stands watch on their campus, Neo-Nazis and other white supremacist groups descended on Charlottesville, VA to protest the university’s decision. The gathering led to a counter-protest resulting in the death of the woman a Neo-Nazi ran over with his vehicle. Since 2017, the controversy surrounding the removal of Southern Confederate Memorials has been met with legislation to protect the monuments from removal or vandalism, as many white Southerners react vehemently to the idea of “having their heritage erased.” William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor wrote during the spikes in the number of the Southern Confederate monuments newly placed in public spaces. Whether we are for keeping or removing these relics of the past, whether we see them as honoring a Southern identity and heritage or symbolizing a violent past of slavery, Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” can show us hidden truths behind the cultural narratives the monuments silently tell. If we look at Faulkner’s Emily and O’Connor’s grandmother as embodiments of the Lost Cause, we understand how identity markers have been falsely constructed through narratives of an idyllic past that never existed. The paper “William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and the Southern Confederate Memorials” argues that Emily and the Grandmother are embodiments of the Lost Cause narratives and compares the depictions (and fatal consequences) of those narratives to the ideology undergirding the Southern Confederate Memorials.