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Conclusion
- The University of Alabama Press
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Conclusion Alice Randall first came to the attention of the reading public in 2001 when her novel The Wind Done Gone inspired a literary, cultural, and legal controversy . many readers who loved margaret mitchell’s classic plantation novel, Gone with the Wind (1936), were at once intrigued and scandalized by Randall ’s parallel narrative told from the perspective of scarlett o’Hara’s supposed half sister: the illegitimate daughter of scarlett’s father and mammy. Randall, an African American writer, had constructed a cultural critique of mitchell’s world and, by extension, of the generations of readers who celebrated Gone with theWind.for its part,the mitchell estate cried foul,launching a copyright infringement lawsuit against Randall’s publisher, Houghton mifflin.The suit was eventually settled in 2002 when the company agreed to market The Wind Done Gone as an “unauthorized parody.”As expected,Randall ’s book itself became a best seller, in part because of the publicity generated by the lawsuit.1 by contrast, the publication of Randall’s third novel, Rebel Yell (2009), was remarkably quiet. Another challenging book about southern culture, race, racism, and American identity, Rebel Yell earned largely positive reviews . nonetheless, few commentators seemed to know what to make of a narrative that concerned everything from the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the fallout from Abu ghraib. even fewer reviewers devoted sustained attention to Randall’s title or to her iconoclastic use of the words “Rebel yell”throughout the book.The novel begins with an almost stereotypical use of the battle cry as the name of a Confederate-themed dinner theater in north Carolina, inside of which performers ride horses onstage as part of a southern cavalry reenactment. 156 / Conclusion it is there at the Rebel Yell restaurant that one of the novel’s protagonists, a black man named Abel Jones, literally suffocates due to the horse dander in the air.2 but because Randall takes a sophisticated view of American and southern culture, her novel soon debunks any easy interpretation of the Rebel yell— particularly with regard to the life and death of Abel Jones. one powerful example can be found in Abel’s memories of bloody sunday, 1965, when as a child he accompanied his father over the edmund Pettus bridge on the march to montgomery. Although witness to the violence, the boy recalls no screeching on the part of the police. Rather, he remembers the aftermath of the beatings most vividly: “Abel rode all the way back to Nashville thinking about what he had seen in Selma. The people were sad, and they were angry, but some of them were something else. He didn’t know the words for it but he recognized defiant and angry and sure when he saw it.” Thousands of earlier narratives had portrayed southern whites as the spiritually undefeated people whose anger and defiance gave rise to the Rebel yell. but Randall noted that African Americans “tucked deep in the dark south”had a far greater claim to those attitudes. Her novel appropriates the “rebel”identity for black Americans and portrays the southern cry as their birthright. in Randall’s pages, white supremacists may wield batons and beat defenseless protesters, but they are denied the capacity to voice a Rebel yell.3 However, the adult Abel does not think of the yell wholly in terms of defiance and rage,as witnessed in a moving scene in which he and his first wife, Hope, discuss their multiracial backgrounds. “i don’t want to be some ‘tragic mulatto.’” “i am a tragic mulatto. You are a . . . my . . . Rebel Yeller.” she had fallen in love with him precisely, as precisely as he had coined the phrase, at the moment he had coined the phrase. Rebel Yeller.” in time, the term “Rebel yeller” becomes a staple in their relationship. We later see Hope ask, “Am i your rebel yeller?” Abel answers her “without words. sometimes each found the other to be a fine and silent witness.”4 The pair’s personal and unique use of the words “Rebel yell”demonstrates the degree to which they have transformed the Confederate battle cry into something new: a symbol of love and commitment that transcends color, [54.145.12.28] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:03 GMT) Conclusion / 157 nation, and even voice. Randall’s novel certainly does not advance a postracial vision of the twenty-first century. but Rebel Yell proposes...