Among the themes and topics most prevalent in Southern literature are the significance of family, a sense of community and one’s role within it, and the land and the promise it brings. Using the two novels we have studied thus far (Their Eyes Were Watching God and Absalom, Absalom!) and discuss how these two works incorporate two or more of the aforementioned themes/characteristics.

Absalom, Absalom! focuses on the contradictions of family through the lens of race and class. The Sutpen family has European and African members, but Thomas Sutpen vehemently rejects the idea of having black relatives, even regarding this news as a betrayal. The mixed-race environment of the Caribbean likewise did not suit him, and he becomes determined to conquer the land and make his fortune in Mississippi. Creating a dynasty along with a plantation connects the themes of family and community. However, he can tame the land only with enslaved people, who constitute a different community. Thomas’s racist attitude passes down to his son, Henry, who destroys his own family by killing Charles. Thomas’s efforts to further ingratiate himself into the larger community lead to his death. The dynasty is symbolically destroyed along with the burned-down house, and the survivor is the African American descendant Jim Bond, who loses his sanity.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the themes of family and community are depicted in Janie and her husbands, and her location in and attitude toward two places. Through each successive marriage, Janie feels that she is moving into a deeper, more honest relationship. This could not occur with Logan because it was not her choice. Jody is connected with community as much as with family through his determination to make Eatonville progress. With Teacake, Janie’s move to the Everglades takes her away from her community; taking care of him places her in a loving family even though he does not respond in kind. Through his death and the ordeal of the trial, Janie realizes that her community is in Eatonville.