For those caught up in the Southern Myth, antebellum southernmost Georgia is a lot like Heaven. F. Scott Fitzgerald follows a Confederate dreamer to the North and back home to Tarleton, Georgia, in his short story "The Ice Palace." The Southern girl, Sally Carrol Happer, finds herself lost in the North longing for her home, of which she has fostered a romantic portrait of the old South throughout her young life. In Fitzgerald's tale "The Last of the Belles," it is a Northern boy named Andy who wishes to return to the home of his former military camp, Tarleton, of which he shares the same mystical view. Although Andy is the vantage point of his story, both works are centered on Southern belles of similar type, both longing for the adventure that the heightened pace of a Northern city promises. However, Sally Carrol Happer and Ailie Calhoun, the Tarleton ideal of "The Last of the Belles," are presented at different stages in their lives although they are portrayed at the same age. The South represented by Tarleton is also seen in different phases. While both stories begin in a Tarleton that still retains the feeling of the old South, "The Ice Palace" ends with Sally Carrol in this same fantasy, whereas Andy finds his Eden lost at the conclusion of "The Last of the Belles," with an empty new South in its place.
[...] Tarleton, GA: Dead or Alive? For those caught up in the Southern Myth, antebellum southernmost Georgia is a lot like Heaven. F. Scott Fitzgerald follows a Confederate dreamer to the North and back home to Tarleton, Georgia, in his short story Ice Palace.” The Southern girl, Sally Carrol Happer, finds herself lost in the North longing for her home, of which she has fostered a romantic portrait of the old South throughout her young life. In Fitzgerald's tale Last of the Belles,” it is a Northern boy named Andy who wishes to return to the home of his former military camp, Tarleton, of which he shares the same mystical view. [...]
[...] Although Sally Carrol and Ailie both play the dead role of Southern belle, Sally Carrol's acting may be less conscious than Ailie's. She genuinely believes in the dream of the old South, which she cultivates at the local cemetery. When her fiancé Harry Bellamy, a Northerner, comes to visit her in Georgia, she takes him to the graveyard, of her favorite haunts,” to show him the Confederate dead (52). The dead South is real to her, most beautiful thing in the world,” (53). [...]
[...] She has given up the dead role of Southern belle, “which was doomed to have no successors,” (461). Her ideal suitor has changed as well; she now “couldn't ever marry a Northern (461). Hanging up the mask, she has embraced the style of the new South, welcoming improvements to Tarleton which she proclaims is “getting quite doggy in its old (463). Having been let down by Ailie, Andy returns to his old military camp to try to rekindle the feeling he has lost, but it is unrecognizable. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
