Jones 1

Bryann Jones
Mr. Hackney
Rhetoric 101
13 November 2014
Racism and Social Class
Race and social class have always proven to be a way of dividing up society. Humans
naturally want the most extravagant things and strive for the best. When we are not able to
achieve this we often discriminate against those whom are better off from a financial standpoint,
or simply from a racial standpoint. When these aspects are focused on explicitly with hatred
more towards the racial aspect, racism is formed. Racism has proven to provoke inhumane
characteristics out of Americans abroad but especially southerners whom majority despised
African Americans. In Eudora Weltys short story Where is the Voice Coming From? the
author introduces a lower class southerner and an upper class African American in Thermopylae
to represent extreme racism and social struggle and to show that greed and hatred make modest
Americans do animalistic things.
Within, Where Is the Voice Coming From? the prevalent issues seem to racism and
social struggle. Welty creates a character that shares the traits of racist southerner during the
early 1900s. The southerner, who is very outspoken, and hardworking is viewed as a typical
southerner, hardworking and underappreciated. Southerners are mainly viewed as idiotic and not
as intellectually stimulated as urban citizens but the southerner portrayed had more intelligent
views despite his clear psychotic behavior. The narrator (The Racist Southerner) begins by
stating that his wife can turn off the TV because she doesnt have to look at a black nigger face
no longer than she wants to (Welty 481). This immediately displays the narrators apparent

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prejudice again African Americans. He then continues to rant about a gentleman name Goat
Dykeman whom threatened to go up yonder and shoot that nigger Meredith clean out of school
(Welty 482). This showing the apparent trending view towards African Americans in
Thermopylae. Then the narrator states I aint no Goat Dykeman, I aint in no pen, and I aint
ask no Governor Barnett to give me one thing. Unless he wants to give me a pat on the back for
the trouble I took this morning. But he dont have to if he dont want to. I done what I done for
my own pure-D satisfaction. (Welty 482). This is very meaningful as the narrator emphasizes
that he is a lower class southerner and that he does not partake in the activities he does for
approval but for his own pleasure his own pure-D satisfaction. The economic struggle is
apparent and the racism is apparent and they both seem to adhere to the southerner.
Equally important, the southerner later acknowledges a murder he has committed and
begins revealing the act to his wife. He states that he waits for Summers (The NAACP Leader)
to arrive home, and he remembers vivid details Summers his new white car, his driveway with
the shining lights all symbolizing the economic deference between them. He emphasizes he had
never seen Summers before and only knew he had the right man because Summers asked him
Are You Saved? He stays only long enough to see Roland Summerss wife run from the house.
Going home, he thinks smugly, I seen what little time it takes after all to get a thing done like
you really want it. (Welty 482). He motions his rifle towards Summers, and his wife notices the
weapon and flees. The narrator then smiles, aims, and guns down Summers in his driveway.
This encases racisms at its height as the southerner shot him simply because he did not like
Summers simply because he had a nicer house, and a nicer driveway. This emphasized partially a
grave social struggle. The narrator then begins to emphasize the moments after he shot Summers
saying that something darker than him, like the wings of a bird spread on his back and pulled

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him down (Welty 483). Standing over the dead mans body, he taunts the corpse: Now Im
alive and you aint. We aint never now, never going to be equals and you know why? One of us
is dead. What about that, Roland? (Welty 483). This in essence symbolized the power that the
southerner felt within the moment of the kill he felt like he had taken down his pray and that he
had accomplished his life goal.
Welty, then continues to perfect the image of her character showing the different
lifestyles that the southerner lives from Summers. The narrator returns home and is greeted by
his wife, who unlike summers wife has not left the light on for him. Coldly, her first question is:
Didnt the skeeters bite you? (Welty 484). They then together they debate his reasons for the
murder. She deflates her husbands sense of originality by telling him that a newspaper
columnist already proposed assassinating civil-rights activists. While she encourages him to
consider the murder as an act of patriotism or pride, he denounces those ideas and says I done it
for my own pure-D satisfaction. (Welty 484). She continues undermining his motives and the
importance of his crime, telling him The N. double A. C. P. is fixing to send somebody to
Thermopylae. Why couldnt you waited? You might could have got you somebody better.
(Welty 485). At this point we begin to see Weltys narrator denies the possibility that he
committed the murder for political gain, but yearns for the approval of the segregationist
governor of his state, which he recognizes early as Goat Dykeman. The narrator wants to avoid
prosecution for his crime, but strives for the medias attention that has been given to Roland
Summers. He is poor and uneducated, but he is also angered. He is a white man angered that a
black man appears on his television, has a house with a garage, has a new car, can afford to
irrigate his grass and leave a light burning through the night. He wants to be seen as more than

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what he is a poor, and uneducated white man who murders a black man for his own pure-D
satisfaction.
Overall, America is founded on the belief of freedom and equality, but nothing is equal.
Social Classes, Race, Ethnicity, Politics, there are all things that separate us and make us
different. Difference is an invitation for judgment whether it be envy or hate. Where is the
Voice Coming From? shows the characteristics of racism and social struggle at their epitome
and emphasize that everyone yearns for improvement whether by working hard or by taking
shortcuts.

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Works Cited
Eudora, Welty. "Where Is The Voice Coming From?" The Oxford Book of American Short
Stories. Ed. Joyce Carol Oates. New York: Oxford UP, 1992. 481-487. Print.
Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today. New York: Garland, 1999. Print.