Feeder 3.1

Throughout different literary works, the rebel flag is used as a symbol representing various southern ideals. In texts such as O Brother, Where Art Thou and Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz, the flag is used in a variety of ways to represent southern pride and the current beliefs of some today. These beliefs include severe prejudice and segregation that the nation as a whole dismisses as irrelevant in today’s society. It also symbolizes characteristics commonly associated with the South, such as remembering history and passing down traditions.
In O Brother, Where Art Thou, the rebel flag is shown during a Ku Klux Klan meeting where they are intending to hang an African American. It serves as a symbol of their entire group and is marched in before anything else, which shows its importance to them. The movie depicts this scene with a very negative and intimidating tone, revealing that the views of this group are wrong and extremely racist. The prisoners that walked up to see this scene are the ones that ended up saving the African American that was sentenced to death. Although they were southerners themselves, they acted against what the rebel flag stood for and made the followers of the flag seem violent and dishonorable as opposed to the prisoners. Because the members of the Ku Klux Klan are the common citizens of the town, including the government officials, the South is envisioned as very racist, radical, and aggressive. The rebel flag is intended to represent each of these ideals with the way it is presented in the film.
In the chapter entitled “Cats of the Confederacy” in Confederates in the Attic, Salisbury, North Carolina is a town that is depicted as stuck in the past in the era of the Civil War. It discusses multiple confederate groups such as Daughters of the Confederacy and The Sons of Confederate Veterans, who held up the rebel flag at the beginning of every meeting and said, “I salute the Confederate flag with affection, reverence, and undying devotion to the Cause for which it stands.” Because they say that national pledge of allegiance prior to this, Horwitz says that they contradicted themselves and makes them seem ridiculous. Also, tradition, the commonly associated characteristic of the South, is represented through these groups. Their children are already members of their respective groups and are growing up believing exactly what their parents currently believe. They are determined to find any family connection to soldiers of the Confederacy, which reveals that southerners strongly value family and their ancestors even if they never knew them. All of these traits of the South are represented with the display of the rebel flag. Later in the chapter, Horwitz visits the home of Ed and Sue Curtis and finds the rebel flag and its associated memorabilia to be present all throughout their home. There are trinkets, pictures, magnets, and flags relating to the Civil War and the Confederacy as a whole everywhere he looks. These people truly devote their lives to the cause and treat the Confederacy as their religion that they follow whole-heartedly.
Another chapter in Confederates in the Attic is “Dying for Dixie”, in which the rebel flag plays a major role again. In Guthrie, Kentucky, a boy named Michael Westerman was killed by a group of black teenagers after flying the rebel flag on the back of his truck. This shows how even today, a flag from the Civil War causes conflict and violence. Kentucky had not even been a confederate state in the war, yet because it is in the south, people still associate it with the confederacy and feel a need to display their loyalty regardless of the other possible meanings. In response to the killing, Michael was proclaimed a Confederate martyr, and was the first man to die for the rebel flag in 130 years. They treated him as a sort of hero who stood up for his belief in the Confederacy against blacks, but in reality he had just flown something offensive that sparked action among the black teenagers. This shows extreme racism that is still present in this town and that puts the entire blame on the blacks instead of dividing it between both. Here, the rebel flag represents both southern pride and racism that has yet to cease in existence even though the war has been over for a long time and people say that everyone is equal.
In both O Brother, Where Art Thou and Confederates in the Attic, the rebel flag is portrayed negatively with numerous consequences. While it is so important to common citizens of each depicted town, both the movie and the book reveal their ideas as ridiculous and immoral by placing the rebel flag in association with murders and bizarre activities. Each of the towns represented are very rural, and even though they take place in two different time periods, the message is essentially the same. Stereotypes are clearly still prevalent, and the rebel flag serves as a symbol of this in each of these pieces of literature.