51 pages • 1 hour read
Bastard Out Of Carolina
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Chapters 11-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary
On the bus to school, Bone notices Shannon Pearl. She recognizes her from the tent revival and knows that she works at her parents’ Christian bookstore. Shannon is a shy, nearly albino girl whom everyone teases for being so unattractive. Students slide to the edges of their seats so that Shannon cannot join them. Bone bristles at this mistreatment and pulls Shannon towards her so that she will have a place to sit down. She subsequently befriends Shannon and is surprised to find out that she is actually a strange and somewhat unpleasant girl: She’d assumed that an individual so reviled for being “ugly” on the outside would possess an inner beauty, but Shannon does not. She delights in telling gruesome, violent stories, and harbors some deeply prejudicial views of Black people. Although Bone is able to meet some famous country western stars through Shannon’s parents, the two have a falling out because Shannon calls Bone “trash.” Bone responds by telling Shannon how “ugly” she is and then hitting her.
Chapter 12 Summary
After Bone and Shannon stop spending time together, Bone loses her interest in church and religion. She spends more time at home, and she and Reese begin to bicker. Reese has also begun to explore her sexuality, and because the two share a bedroom and a bed, Bone figures out what Reese is doing. She tries to give her space and privacy. Glen’s work hours have been cut and, because he now works for his father, he is especially angry and lashes out at Bone.
Her mother, wanting to prevent Bone from antagonizing Glen, tells her to start spending more time at her aunt Raylene’s. Raylene lives on her own outside the city limits and lets the family children do as they please on her property. Having no children of her own, she feels that the best way to raise young people is to let them be. She’d been a wild teenager, and Bone is thrilled to hear how she’d run away to work for a carnival, cut her hair short, and called herself Ray. Everyone had assumed that she’d been a man, and Bone dreams of having a similar adventure. Raylene is known to be an excellent gardener and a good cook, and she immediately puts Bone to work helping her. She tells Anney that she’d appreciate Bone’s assistance a few days a week, and Bone is happy to spend more time with her aunt, whom she realizes is a kindred spirit of sorts. Raylene had worked for many years at the local mill, although the owners hadn’t let her fix their machines, not realizing that she was a better mechanic than a factory worker. Bone admires Raylene’s independence and her ability to work with her hands. Anney comes out to help Raylene can, and the two talk about Glen. Like the rest of the family, Raylene is no fan of Anney’s husband, but Anney still gushes about him and expresses hope that things will improve for him at work.
Chapter 13 Summary
Shannon calls Bone, and Bone’s mother encourages her to rekindle their friendship. Shannon invites Bone to a barbeque at her home, and Bone agrees to attend. When she arrives, she sees Shannon playing with lighter fluid and is witness to a terrible accident: Shannon inadvertently sets herself on fire, and she dies from her injuries. Although Bone had just seen the incident and had not caused it, Shannon’s mother is suspicious and the sheriff questions her. She and her mother attend Shannon’s funeral, although Reese is not allowed to go. Glen, still upset about his difficult work situation, begins drinking.
Chapter 14 Summary
Shannon’s death haunts Bone, and her sister begins to spend more and more time with her friends instead of with Bone. Bone becomes increasingly fixated on her body and cannot help but observe her lack of traditional feminine features, her solidity, and her height. Where her mother and Raylene see strength and stamina, Bone sees the body of a “trashy” girl, not the southern belle that she would like to be. This deep dissatisfaction with her body combines with increasing stress in the family: Glen is angry that he cannot provide better for Anney and her children, resents his father, and is unhappy at work. Anney sends Bone to her aunt Alma’s after school so that she can give Glen his space.
Glen is verbally abusive even when he does not hit or molest Bone, and he tells her how un-special and selfish she is, how lazy. After cleaning the bathroom because Glen tells her that it is, because of her, “a sty,” she takes a long bath and wonders why she is not special, why the only thing that seems to set her apart from her peers is her rage. She continues to hate her appearance. She also hates Glen, and dreams of hurting him. Bone also dreams of being in a “normal family.” She wishes that Glen loved her the way that a father should and yearns for approval. At Alma’s, she organizes angry games with her cousins like “Mean Sisters,” suggesting to others that something is not quite right with her.
Chapter 15 Summary
Uncle Earle is at the county farm (in prison), and Raylene takes Reese and Bone to go visit him. He has gifts for the family, small leather goods that he and the other inmates produce. Bone is glad to see him, although she notices that he looks thinner. He is also glad to see her, and their bond remains strong in spite of his having been in prison for months now. She finds herself fiercely proud of him and other members of her family, all of whom persevered in the face of adversity, and feels proud to be a Boatwright.
Bone’s cousins Grey and Garvey were arrested recently for drag racing, and it is the talk of the family. Grey and Bone hatch a plan of their own: She’d found a large hook in the river at her aunt Raylene’s, and they agree to use it to break into the Woolworth’s that Bone has not been inside of since she’d been caught stealing tootsie rolls. They use the hook (attached to a rope) to scale the exterior wall, and Bone sneaks into the building through the exhaust system. She lets Grey in the front door and the two pilfer a few small items. When they leave, they prop the doors open and tell a group of men whom they happen across that Woolworth’s doors are unlocked. The men take off running, and Bone is thrilled to know that the entire store will probably be looted before the owners find out.
Chapters 11-15 Analysis
Bone remains at the forefront of these chapters. Through her characterization, Allison explores the impact of mistreatment, class-based prejudice, and abuse on Bone’s coming of age. Shame, anger, and erratic acting out plague Bone, but she does find comfort in her family relationships, and although Anney’s enabling impacts the bond she shares with her mother, both Raylene and Earle figure prominently in her life during this time.
Bone feels a rising sense of shame during these years. Like her mother, she is stigmatized for being poor. Shannon, the schoolmate she befriends because the other students treat her so viciously, reveals herself to be unkinder than Bone would have suspected. Although initially Shannon’s mean-spirited commentary is directed towards other people, she eventually calls Bone “trash,” and Bone quickly fires back that Shannon is “ugly.” Shannon is likely repeating what her parents have said about Bone and Bone’s family, but the quickness with which she resorts to class-based prejudice and name calling is indicative of how endemic such bias is in the community. This kind of stigmatization impacts how Bone sees herself, as she is already used to internalizing this particular slur.
In addition to feeling the sting of being called “trash,” Bone is also used to internalizing the criticism and blame that Glen heaps on her. Glen’s abuse, too, has become a source of deep shame, as she continues to believe that she deserves it. Glen’s verbal abuse increases during these years, and in one scene he berates Bone for not properly cleaning the bathroom and scathingly criticizes her for not being “special.” This deeply wounds Bone, and instead of wondering why Glen would say such a terrible thing, she wonders why she isn’t special. When he insults her, she believes him. She extends this self-criticism to her body, and as she enters adolescence, she begins to hate her solid frame and her lack of feminine grace. All of this shame and loathing has been manufactured, in part by Glen, becoming one of the most difficult aspects of Coming of Age.
Rage also rises to the surface during these years. At first, Bone expresses her anger only in fantasy. She dreams of hurting Glen and of finding ways to hold him accountable for his actions. She thinks to herself: “In the dream it felt good to hate him” (209). She does not have the power to stop Glen, but she does escape into a dream world in which she does. As she ages, however, her anger finds new avenues of expression. She invents angry games like “Mean Sister,” and although she is only playing, it becomes increasingly obvious to those around her that something might be wrong with Bone. Her fixation with religion, and the speed with which she loses interest in it, represents a cry for help. Because the Boatwright family is not particularly religious, however, her temporary religiosity strikes them as odd more than anything else. The break-in that she and her cousin organize at Woolworth’s represents the peak of Bone’s erratic search for self. Because Woolworth’s had been the site of her childhood shoplifting incident, breaking and entering there seems especially meaningful. Anney had punished her for the crime, and returning to the store to steal and vandalize becomes a rejection of what she perceives as her mother’s hypocrisy: Anney objects to petty theft yet allows Glen to abuse Bone. Bone’s break-in represents a burgeoning sense of self alongside a growing understanding of her mother’s hypocrisy.
Bone does find some solace in her aunts and uncles, revealing again that The Strength of Familial Bonds is a source of resilience. Raylene’s influence, both as someone to share her thoughts with and as a role model, is helpful to Bone. Filled with shame and self-loathing, she can turn to Raylene for confirmation that there is nothing inherently wrong with being eccentric or unfeminine. Raylene lives a happy life outside of the boundaries of societal norms, and in her example Bone sees a possible future for herself. She also takes comfort in her relationship with her uncle Earle. He is incarcerated at this point in the story, and although it is said of him that he “can’t handle himself well enough to stay out of jail,” Bone sees something different in his life choices: resilience (217). In spite of being at the “county farm,” Earle remains dedicated to his family. He fashions small leather goods for them, enjoys their visits, and Bone still feels him to be a loving presence in her life.
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