"Tobacco Road"

Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes the book, "Tobacco Road", by Erskine Caldwell and, in particular, discusses the author's life and its effect on his writing of "Tobacco Road," as well as criticisms of the novel and the novel's place in our literary history. It looks at how "Tobacco Road" is probably one of the most enduring glimpses into a tragic part of America's history that has ever been written and how, by profiling a poor white family from Georgia, it encapsulates the poverty and hunger these people faced, while using dark humor and pathos to portray the tragedy of their lives and the gradual decline of any decency in their spirit.

From the Paper:

"Throughout the novel, Jeeter and the Lesters continually blame their problems on God, on just about everybody but themselves. "' My children all blame me because God sees fit to make me poverty-ridden, Love,' Jeeter said" (Caldwell 15). They cannot take responsibility for their own actions, and they must blame their condition on someone else, it could never be their own fault. They are pathetic and amusing at the same time. Jeeter spends so much effort whining about his condition, he could certainly have done something about it if he was not so concerned with making everyone around him as miserable as he was."

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