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Es un viaje a la miseria, la pobreza que amenaza a la familia de Lester Jeter y a la que temen porque les hará inferiores a las familias de negros que les rodean, que habían estado tradicionalmente subordinados a ellos. Heredero de una plantación de algodón que en tiempos fue próspera, ahora Lester y su mujer Ada son meros arrendatarios, aunque se agarran a la esperanza de pedir un crédito para volver a plantar una cosecha. Han tenido 17 hijos, de los cuales sólo quedan en casa Ellie May con su labio leporino y su cuerpo explosivo y Dude, que no tiene una inteligencia normal. I found Jeter Lester to be an unsympathetic character for the most part, until the very end, when Lov gave a kind of eulogy about people who love the land and what they expect from it. This passage gave me a better understanding of Jeter and I read it over and over again. Jeter had had the ambition and life beaten out of him by the breakdown of the only system he had ever known and the final betrayal was that of the land itself. Sumner Defeated in Fight on a Book: Magistrate Greenspan Finds Novel by Erskine Caldwell Is Not Obscene". The New York Times. May 24, 1933. p.19.
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Tobacco Road number 91 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. [1] The novel was included in Life magazine's list of the 100 outstanding books of 1924–1944. [2] He dropped out of Erskine College to sign aboard a boat supplying guns to Central America. [3] Caldwell entered the University of Virginia with a scholarship from the United Daughters of the Confederacy, but was enrolled for only a year. [3] He then became a football player, bodyguard, and salesman of "bad" real estate. [3] The author clearly was way ahead in his thinking and wrote his stories for many generations later to appreciate and understand. During his own lifetime he was not appreciated. "His first two books, Tobacco Road (1932) and God’s Little Acre (1933), made Caldwell famous, but this was not initially due to their literary merit. Both novels depict the South as beset by racism, ignorance, cruelty, and deep social inequalities. They also contain scenes of sex and violence that were graphic for the time. Both books were banned from public libraries and other venues, especially in the South. Caldwell was prosecuted for obscenity, though exonerated." Caldwell, Virginia Moffett Fletcher". Social Networks and Archival Context . Retrieved October 2, 2022. Every year Jeeter thinks “if I can get cotton seeds and guano” everything will be fine. But of course seeds and fertilizer cost money. There’s plenty of hopelessness but no money. And Jeeter continues to await a windfall of some kind.What is primary: poverty or depravity? Actually, it is a vicious circle – poverty aggravates depravity and depravity exacerbates poverty and the process continues until human being is reduced to the bestial condition. And then man begins to exist ruled by animal instincts and physiological needs.
I have seen Tobacco Road labeled as satire -- and I wondered given the degree of realism present. But then I think of Granny behind the chinaberry trees, Pearl with the almost unnaturally beautiful blond hair, Bessie the lustful preacher woman with "the face" no one can abide, and lastly the car -- the object that both embodies so much emotion and is the "vehicle" for so much pain and evil.Bode, Carl (March 1956). "Erskine Caldwell: A Note for the Negative". College English. 17 (6): 357–359. doi: 10.2307/372378. JSTOR 372378. The land kept the Lester family in food, clothing, and shelter for generations but when the land gradually lost the needed nutrients it grew less and less. A much larger land area (a plantation, can’t recall) belonging to the Lesters was sold off gradually by each generation. Over time the land simply gave out from being overused with the nutrients gradually depleted from the planting of tobacco and later, cotton.
After he returned from World War II, Caldwell took up residence in Connecticut, then in Arizona with third wife, June Johnson (J.C. Martin). In 1957, Caldwell married Virginia Moffett Fletcher Caldwell Hibbs, who had drawn illustrations for a recent book of his, [14] moving to Twin Peaks in San Francisco, [17] later moving to Paradise Valley, Arizona, in 1977. [14] Of his residence in the San Francisco Bay Area, he once said: "I live outside San Francisco. That's not exactly the United States." [18] During the last twenty years of his life, his routine was to travel the world for six months of each year, taking with him notebooks in which to jot down his ideas. Many of these notebooks were not published but can be examined in a museum dedicated to him in the town square of Moreland, Georgia, where the home in which he was born was relocated and dedicated to his memory. With that said, it bothers me to hear comments that readers didn’t like the book because it was depressing, sad, dark, and inhumane. Even the word ‘ignorance’ came up; the ignorance of the characters. Jeeter Lester, the patriarch of the family, would not and could not fathom working in the city in one of the cotton mills. The cotton mill was where their neighbors migrated to make a living. But the Lesters wouldn't leave the only thing they had ever known which was farming the land. Daddy said he never had a 'real' toothbrush until he joined the service when he was 17. (He made them from a twig of a specific tree branch by flaring and separating one end to act as bristles. He showed us how he did it on one visit to see Grandma.) Erskine Caldwell does a commendable job of emphasizing how socioeconomic hardships negatively impact the psyche and relationships of everyday people. He encourages the reader to tap into their sociological imagination and discover the underlying institutional problems that heighten personal issues. The Lesters become increasingly demoralized as they try to make sense of the uncertainty faced. As a result, the family descends into mayhem, which causes separation and death for some relatives. Update this section!I’ve never read anything like ‘Tobacco Road’ and although it’s interesting reading, it also evokes a sense of unease, disquiet, and rumblings of anger. The Lesters do not seem much better than animals, living pretty much instinctually, trying to satisfy hunger and sexual appetites. Their house is in disrepair and nothing is ever fixed. When the roof leaks, they just move to another corner of the room. Jeeter dreams about growing cotton, but no creditor will lend him money. They live on land once owned by Grandfather Lester, long since lost to creditors and taxmen. There are crazy, almost comedic fiascos that occur, but the world these people live in causes my humor to dry up. Jeeter demeans Ellie May because she has a harelip that he never could find the money to get fixed. What man would want to look at that face, he asks. He sells Pearl and leers at his daughter-in-law. A lot of times, these characters just seem dumb. Caldwell occasionally steps somewhat clumsily into the narrative to discuss his message more boldly. Otherwise he lets the story provide the details of the rich in power, tenant farmers set loose with nothing, the land being lost to poor use practices over generations. Tobacco Road has haunted me for days. The characters and their shenanigans have permeated my subconscious. I cannot help but dwell on it even when I am not actively reading. He was a very sinful man. Probably the most sinful man in the country, he claims, with some of the neighboring children bearing his resemblance, and the new couple who moved in years ago ...Ada did not want him to finish his sentences, when he got this excited about his legacy. Seventeen legitimate children born by Ada later, with twelve surviving, he was a man who knew how to plant seed and let them grow. He did not see any other future for himself or his land, than planting as much seed in any way he could. That is God's plan for a man like Jeeter Lester.