Southern Belle
The term Southern Belle describes a widespread stereotype in American culture of a young, educated and cultured beautiful white woman from the American southern states, who, although often flirtatious , brings with it an aura of prudishness .
A Southern Belle comes from the upper class of society and has enjoyed a solid education. She appears proud and confident. Nevertheless, she knows how to chat in an entertaining way and is happy to receive guests. It roughly corresponds to the term “ higher daughter ” in German-speaking countries. The German counterpart, however, lacks something of that “southern charm and fire” that is attributed to the Southern Belle.
Viewed negatively, a Southern Belle is an affected, graceful, snooty-looking woman who tries by all means to preserve her youth and beauty. Their thinking is of that snobbery coined that makes them look down on the less fortunate. The stereotype of the Southern Belle was coined especially after the defeat of the Southern Confederation in the Civil War and is an integral part of the myth of the Lost Cause and the " good old days " before the war. The best-known Southern Belle in American literary and film history is Scarlett O'Hara, the protagonist of Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone with the Wind .
A special case is the so-called faded Southern Belle ("faded southern beauty"), who has passed her best days, is no longer able to match the ideal of the Southern Belle, whether her age, and finally despairs of the discrepancy between appearance and reality. Here is a locus classicus the character of Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams ' drama Endstation Sehnsucht . A caricature of the faded Southern Belle can be found in the character of Blanche Deveraux in the sitcom Golden Girls .
literature
- Christie Anne Farnham: The Education of the Southern Belle: Higher Education and Student Socialization in Antebellum South. New York et al. 1994, ISBN 0-8147-2615-1 .
- Anne Firor Scott: The Southern Lady: From Pedestal to Politics 1830-1930. Charlottesville ( VA ) et al. 1995, ISBN 978-0813916446 .
- Kathryn Lee Seidel: The Southern Belle; Her Fall from the Pedestal in Fiction of the Southern Renaissance. College Park ( MD ) 1976.
- Kathryn Lee Seidel: The Southern Belle in American Novel. Tampa ( FL ) 1985, ISBN 0-8130-0835-2 .
- Anne Ward Lyons: Myth and Agony: the Southern Woman as Belle. Ann Arbor (Michigan) 1975.
