1. Hillbilly Elegy Jd Vance Sparknotes Summary
2. Hillbilly Elegy Jd Vance Sparknotes Pdf
3. Hillbilly Elegy Jd Vance Sparknotes Book

• Need help with Chapter 1 in J. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy? Check out our revolutionary side-by-side summary and analysis.
• A 2016 memoir, 'Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis' by J.D. Vance, has gained popularity again as people across the country await its upcoming Netflix adaptation. The memoir recounts Vance's life growing up with his Kentucky family in Ohio; tackling his experience with poverty to observations of addiction in Appalachia.
• Vance begins his memoir in a seemingly ironic way: by telling the reader how absurd it is that he’s written a book at all. “I find the existence of the book you hold in your hands somewhat absurd,” he writes, confessing that he hasn’t achieved anything extraordinary in the grand scheme of things.

Hillbilly Elegy (2016) is an autobiographical walk through the life of a man who grew up in an impoverished neighborhood of Middletown, Ohio. These blinks tell the story of a boy who, despite a turbulent childhood, beat the odds and pulled himself out of poverty. Vance was born a hillbilly. He grew up poor in an Ohio steel town that.

The memoir depicting the Appalachian region pats negative stereotypes on the back

Photo by Piper Hansen | The State Press

Sunlight shines through tree branches at YMCA Camp Piomingo in Brandenburg, Kentucky, in July 2018.

A 2016 memoir, 'Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis' by J.D. Vance, has gained popularity again as people across the country await its upcoming Netflix adaptation.

The memoir recounts Vance's life growing up with his Kentucky family in Ohio; tackling his experience with poverty to observations of addiction in Appalachia. His stories ring deafeningly loud of learned values like loyalty, responsibility and tough love.

Appalachia is the eastern cultural region spanning 13 states, from southeastern New York down the Appalachian Mountains, all the way to the northern parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia.

Vance takes a few chapters to criticize those he thought were profiting off of the poor while his family struggled. And an even larger part of the book attempts to explain Appalachia's political swing in the 2016 presidential election highlighting the supposed agenda of the rural, white working class which includes everything from stereotype to truth.

The book blames or, depending on how you read it, thanks the region for electing President Donald Trump but does so without breaking down voter suppression in the region and the lack of broadband internet for researching candidates. Instead, Vance leans on the 'out-of-touch' title the region has garnered.

I enjoy memoirs; you learn from the mistakes of others and get to experience another life you may not be familiar with. But it seems 'Hillbilly Elegy' has other motives when it takes the experience of one person and assigns it as the experience of all.

Whatever the facts are, it doesn't seem fair to me to make broad generalizations about any region, something the book does and almost prides itself on. By doing so, you cut off that community from having a voice, from defending itself against first impressions.

Before I moved out of Kentucky for college, I never envisioned myself constantly defending where I come from. Like many Kentuckians, I'm really proud of my stomping ground. I recover when I have to brush off jokes about liking bluegrass music, being a former horse girl, having a sometimes detectable southern twang.

It's not that I don't want to, or that I want to stop defending where I'm from. I just feel like I shouldn't have to.

Vance is a veteran, author, commentator and graduate of Yale Law School — a fact he makes abundantly clear and questionably all-important. He's since joined a venture capital firm, and there have even been rumors he's considering running for public office.

Other critics of the book have noted that Vance only spent summers with his grandparents in Appalachia, not giving him the supreme authority to be the voice of the region that he eventually became.

Piper Hansen

A map highlighting the Appalachia region of the U.S. published on Tuesday, April 21, 2020.

The book, featuring a sociological construction of what Vance thinks Appalachia is, was a national bestseller for years. Critics and book lovers from outside the region said it was a perfect window into the white working class, an insider look at what makes Appalachia tick.

But 'Hillbilly Elegy' isn't profound. The book asserts that because one person made it out of 'broken' Appalachia, everyone should be able, and is expected, to do the same. Its primary argument is that poor people suffer because they don't know any better.

The story relies on personal anecdotes with pronouns like 'I' and 'me.' However, Vance swiftly changes to pronouns like 'us' and 'we,' consolidating his life story with the rest of Appalachia's.

I don't want to demean J. D. Vance's experiences — I do believe that his struggles are and were real. The issues and struggles in the book are important, but the book itself is not. None of the challenges Vance touts are special to 'hillbillies.'

Appalachia is no different than the rest of America, and the prospect of Netflix — or any other producer, frankly — rounding out the edges of an entire community for funding's sake, or whatever it may be, seems unethical.

Vance's writing shows that he may have a seriously narrow view of not just Appalachia but the world. I'm afraid that any film adaptation would have the same tone, putting the region at an even higher risk of death by stereotype.

The book fails to recognize the cultural diversity of Appalachia, a region that spans 13 states, as well as a history of racial and economic inequality. Vance uses a disenfranchised argument to say that hillbillies need an elegy in the first place implying that they need mourning or reflection for themselves and their lack of what he sees as opportunities to thrive.

His memoir bashes the entire region with shocking ease and gives a false impression of what the people of Appalachia are really like. The book reaffirms negative stereotypes for anyone who might not be familiar and that's really dangerous.

It stings knowing that someone I might sit next to in the fall would ask me where I'm from on the first day, and they won't get to know me because they think they already know.

People love to talk about Appalachia, but they often aren't willing to listen. Hollywood and mainstream media continue to hyper-fixate on one piece of the South and on Appalachia, trying to tell the stories of offbeat people or sometimes the systematic struggles they face.

It seems that in the case of 'Hillbilly Elegy,' research wasn't a priority, however. The memoir and the soon-to-be-released film will leave a lot of people in the dark about the details they apparently want to know.

I think the unprecedented situation we're in today is not the time to combat personal life struggles, especially when there's no shared life story anymore. I do think Vance's struggles are real and shouldn't be dismissed. But with that being said, the only way I can think of to rebuild the narrative of Appalachia, or rather construct one with more accuracy, is to recognize this memoir for what it is.

Ron Howard, the adaptation's director, calls Vance's book a 'self-actualization story.' But in actuality, it is 260 pages and what is to be an hour-and-a-half-long display of one man's self-righteous need to display the lower class.

Stereotypes aren't the full picture, and there are so many other resources with research and a multitude of perspectives. Don't read Vance's memoir and don't watch the movie when it gets added to Netflix. If you're truly interested in reading about an Appalachian experience, reach for 'What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia' by Elizabeth Catte or 'Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia' by Steven Stoll.

Reach the reporter at pjhanse1@asu.edu and follow @piperjhansen on Twitter.

Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.

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Hillbilly Elegy Jd Vance Sparknotes Summary

J.D. Vance begins his book by presenting the reason why he wanted to write it in the first place. Vance distinguishes himself as a man who came from a poor family and who, despite the odds, managed to get a degree from a prestigious law school. Vance comes from a family of Scots-Irish immigrants and hailed from a poor part of Kentucky, where drug abuse and poverty were common. Despite this, Vance claims that the hillbillies are in part to blame for their own situation since they believe they are largely powerless to do anything to change it.

In the first chapter, Vance describes his family and childhood. Vance moved a lot as a child but he always felt close to Jackson, Kentucky, where he spent his summer days with his grandmother. Vance was abandoned by his father at a young age and notes that his mother dated many men, but none of them stayed for too much time. Because of this instability in his eventual Ohio hometown, Vance always felt safe in Kentucky, the place where his grandparents and family's roots remained. Vance remembers stories his uncles told him: tales about how they protected their family values even though it sometimes meant using violence.

Vance mourns for his Ohio hometown, as it has suffered a decline as a result of widespread poverty. Instead of trying to solve the problem, the people in the city lost faith in their ability to control that which was occurring around them and allowed the place to decay both physically and emotionally.

In the second chapter, Vance talks about his grandparents. Vance’s grandparents, Mamaw and Papaw, were childhood friends and had their first child when Mamaw was 13. The two moved from their hometown because they were afraid of how their families would react, and Papaw found a job in Ohio at a steel plant. They did return home from time to time despite being criticized by their families for running away. In Ohio, they likewise looked at with contempt by their more conventional neighbors, who did not trust them because they were 'hillbillies.' The two also had problems integrating and finding their place in the small community. The two managed to escape poverty and achieve economic stability, moving into a bigger house when their children grew older.

After the couple had three children, they began having marital problems. Papaw began drinking and Mamaw warned him that she would kill him if she ever caught him drunk. She made good on this promise, once attempting to set Papaw on fire.

Their first child, Jimmy, left home at 18 and found a good job. Their second child, Lori, married an abusive husband whom she later divorced. Their youngest, Bev (the author's mother), got pregnant at 19 and gave birth to a daughter. She later became a single mother, divorcing her abusive husband.

Vance notes that his grandparents eventually reconciled and became an example to him. They also helped their children through tough times and urged their daughters to leave their abusive husbands.

Vance later introduces the company that provided a safety net to people like his grandfather: Armco Steel. Vance notes that while factory towns encourage their citizens to have a good life, they also encourage complacency. Often, children in factory towns grow up depending on the idea that they will have a job at the factory, and thus do not aspire to go to college.

Luckily, Vance received an alternate education at home. Even though his grandparents and mother were not exceptionally intelligent, they made sure to push Vance in the right direction and to assure him that he can do anything if he is willing to work for it.

Vance’s mother remarried, to a man named Bob. The couple moved from Middletown and then shortly began fighting with one another. Things became violent, and Vance regularly broke up fights between his mother and adoptive father. Bob asked for a divorce when he found that Bev was cheating on him. Bev tried to kill herself after the incident, and Mamaw convinced her to move back to Middletown so she could help raise Vance and his sister, Lindsay.

Unfortunately, Bev's bad choices, which often included staying up late to drink and yelling at her children, led to a tense family dynamic. She even tried to kill Vance, but a woman called the police and Bev was arrested. After that, Vance began spending more time at his grandmother's home.

Vance also contacted his biological father and was surprised to find that he was nothing like his mother had described him; he was instead a religious family man with a loving wife and children. His father also introduces Vance to his Christian faith, allowing Vance to see how religion could help people make good choices when times are tough. Unfortunately, his father's Christian faith also discourages Vance from believing he can be himself.

When Vance was 13, Papaw died; soon after, Vance found that his mother was addicted to prescription pills. Bev eventually went to rehab, and Vance and his sister Lindsay remained alone to fend for themselves.

After finishing eighth grade, Bev tried to convince Vance to move to another city so she could move in with her boyfriend. Vance refused and went to live with his father instead. Weeks later, Vance called his sister to come and get him, discouraged by the pressures of his father's devout Christianity. To escape, he moved in with Mamaw. When school started, Vance moved back to his mother's house, as she planned to marry once more. This time, the man’s name was Ken, and he was Bev’s boss. Unfortunately, Vance did not get along with Ken’s children, so Vance began sleeping at Mamaw’s from time to time.

Around the same time, Vance began smoking pot, and his mother began using drugs again. After Mamaw found out about Bev’s drug use, she told Bev that from that day on, Vance would be staying with her full-time. After moving in with Mamaw, Vance’s life began improving and he started focusing on his school again.

Around the same time, Vance began reading about sociological problems and the factors that might be contributing to the decline of his community. Sensing that he was not independent or motivated enough to go to college right after high school, Vance decided to join the Marines. Vance was sent to boot camp, but he visited Mamaw as often as he could. In 2005, after finishing his training, Vance was to be deployed to Iraq. Before going to Iraq, however, Mamaw died from a collapsed lung stemming from emphysema.

Vance went to Iraq, where he worked for two years. After Vance returned from Iraq, he decided to go to college and began attending Ohio State University, where he graduated in one year and eleven months. During his time there, Vance worked several jobs to sustain himself. He then moved back to Middletown where Vance worked to make money to go to law school.

Hillbilly Elegy Jd Vance Sparknotes Pdf

Vance was accepted into Yale, where he had a hard time adjusting mainly because he was unsure where he fit in, but also because the teachers looked down on him for not having graduated from a prestigious college. Vance fell in love with a woman named Usha, who helped him navigate his newfound upper-crust lifestyle, along with one of his professors and mentors, Amy Chua. Vance gradually learned to open up about his life, confront his anger issues, and gain the social capital he needed to succeed.

After finishing college, Vance married Usha. Around the same time, Vance found out that his mother had begun using drugs again. Instead of abandoning her, however, Vance decided to help her when he could.

Hillbilly Elegy Jd Vance Sparknotes Book

Vance ends his book by describing how much he has changed as a result of his Mamaw's positive influence, and how he hopes to better himself every day by learning to control his inherited temper, give children from backgrounds like his a leg up, and by being a model they can follow.