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Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Writing
Profile
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, like many authors who write
about a specific environment, developed a writing style often referred
to as local color or regional writing. Below is a description of
these categories of writing. See if you can name other authors who
use these writing styles. |
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Local Color
Authors who use this style of writing often create characters based in
a small, distinct region. These characters usually have a regional dialect
and are presented as stereotypes in a generally humorous and sympathetic
fashion. Other common themes/features found in local color writing are
the goodness and earthiness of plain country folk and the slow disappearance
of rural culture in an urban, industrialized society. Local color writers
tend to present the exterior view of the characters and their situations.
Some of these writers include Mark Twain, Joel Chandler Harris and Sarah
Orne Jewett. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ books The Yearling
and The Secret River are often categorized as local color writing. |
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Regional Writing
This style of writing is broader than local color. Like local color writing,
regional writing uses a particular time and place (often a rural, isolated
community), but the characters develop and grow from internal motivation
rather than relying on environment. The themes and topics found in regional
writing move from intimate, local knowledge to universal human experiences.
Popular regional writers include Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner,
Zora Neale Hurston and Ellen Glasgow. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ Cross
Creek is one of the finest examples of regional writing. |
