Rose-Johnny

In the story Rose-Johnny, we can see that there are different type of perspectives and altitudes towards one another amongst the town of Walnut Knobs. Walnut Knobs is rural southern town which in fact was filled with hatred and prejudice especially in the story setting, the nineteen fifties.

The townspeople clearly did not appreciate weird different woman like Rose-Johnny that worked at Walls Feed store. Rumors of Rose-Johnny were heavy circulated amongst the townspeople. Although such rumors were that Rose-Johnny was a pervert and also a lesbian, Georgeann, the innocent ten year old pushed them aside. The ten year old narrator says that their “mothers warned them time and again not to go near them” (p.98 p2). However due to the growing curiosity fueled by the universal forbiddance to go near and speak to Rose-Johnny, Georgeann bravely befriends Rose-Johnny. It was almost like a personal dare which really turned into finding out the truth about Rose-Johnny.

When Georgeann got to know Rose-Johnny better, her perspective on Rose-Johnny changed drastically. This was because Georgeann found out the truth; the rumors were not what they seemed to be. Georgeann described Rose-Johnny that “she was not, as we always heard, half man and half woman.” (p.99 p4) The half man and half woman is a rumor that the townspeople said about Rose-Johnny like she was some sort of unknown creature. Georgeann was “astonished by Rose-Johnny’s ordinariness.” (p.99 p4) Georgeann defended Rose-Johnny with the weird looking lady rumors. She said that it is true that Rose-Johnny wore Red Wing Boots, but the rest of her looks like anybody’s mother “in a big flowered dress without a waistline and with two faded spots in front.” (p99 p5)

The townspeople, especially the children could have been afraid of Rose-Johnny due to all the rumors being told about her. The two men that were in front of the store warned Georgeann to stay away from Rose-Johnny: “tell your daddy to never send his little girls to the Wall’s Feed store.” (p.100 p25) Despite this, Georgeann wasn’t afraid of Rose-Johnny at all. She was comfortable at the very start of meeting her. The story said that “she hooked her eyes right into mine, the way the bit goes into the mule’s mouth and fits just so, one way and no other. Her eyes were the palest blue of any I had ever seen. Then she threw her back head and laughed so hard I could see the wide, flat bottoms of her back teeth, and I wasn’t afraid of her.” (p.100 p24)

In the story, this hostility from the townspeople was interpreted by the reader due to the fact that Rose-Johnny is because she is, or appears to be, a lesbian. Rose-Johnny wasn’t a lesbian later discovered in the story. The real reason for this hatred is the past love affair between Rose-Johnny’s mother and a “brown” man and also the birth of their child together. The town community was racist and rather than being the cause of her trouble, Rose-Johnny’s sexual ambiguity protects her from the men of the town. Her mother understood that people that feared the unknown and unusual would shun a woman whose sexual orientation was in doubt.

Another contrast to the townspeople and Georgeann is that their views were obviously different towards Rose-Johnny. For example, the Mattox boys called Rose-Johnny names and made fun of her. Georgeann promptly defended