Tainted by (White) Trash: Class, Respectability and the Language of Waste in Dorothy Allison and Bonnie Jo Campbell

Abstract

This article addresses the depiction of class, whiteness, dirt and respectability in the short stories “Meanest Woman Ever Left Tennessee”, by Dorothy Allison, and “Boar Taint”, by Bonnie Jo Campbell, from the perspective of waste studies and whiteness studies. Characters in these stories erect discursive barriers between themselves and others, deemed ‘white trash’ — a pervasive stigmatype connected to the working poor experience in the US. By enforcing hierarchies that conflate cleanliness and respectability, these characters seek to prove their adherence to unmarked forms of whiteness while resisting assimilation into the white trash category. The negotiation of (intra-)class divisions, especially between middle and working classes, exposes the malleability of social hierarchies predicated on relationships of waste. In the end, the protagonists’ rejection of white respectability re-signifies their association with waste and leads them to find pride and community in their working-class occupations, without necessarily embracing a purported white trash identity.