White Trash Primer: Survival of the Fittest

Jordan Simpson

English 1020

March 30 2014

Ms. Katheryne Laborde

White Trash Primer: Survival of the Fittest

In Lacy M. Johnson’s short story, “White Trash Primer”, it vividly describes the story of a young woman makes drastic changes and undergoes several hardships throughout her young, adult life. She tells the story from a unique point of view, as if the reader was going through the hardships of the narrator themselves. This not only gives the audience a closer sense of the story, but illuminates the hardships and struggles the narrator experiences. Between having to move out of your family home, to getting raped, the narrator holds no bars against telling the story. Within it the short story the narrator begins to look at herself as “White Trash”. Her family could barely make ends meet, and this forced her to step up when the time came. She had to either mature and use the opportunities she was given, or survive without regards to herself or anyone else. In this personal memoir, the narrator is portrayed as a survivor due to the acts she performed to overcome her times of hardships and struggle.

One of the first instances that opened up for the narrator, was living in a family where the finances were a daily struggle. At a certain point, the family has to resort to selling their family farm because they could not keep up the necessities to maintain it. This was significant, being that their farm was expected to produce and sell products to the community. Facing this time of hardship, one would understand how someone would hate to see his or her family miserable and suffering in that manner. This would be the “spark” of the survivor instinct within the author.

As a result of her family losing their farm, the young narrator pursued a job without her parents knowing, just as anyone else would in that situation. She applied to a local Wal-Mart, but was sadly denied employment. She understood that her family needed to survive, so she did what she had to do and took the necessary actions. She applied to that Wal-Mart 6 times until she was given a job. With all of the hassle of simply trying to get the job,  she could let go of what she needed to do for her family. To save money, she would bring peanut butter sandwiches to work instead of buying lunch. She even goes a step further, when the narrator mentions that she is in college, along with working forty hours a week at Wal-Mart.

So what else could go wrong within the life of the narrator? She is a young adult, in college, working 40 hours a week to provide for her family. Her possibly losing her self-dignity and her morals is the answer. But, its all apart of surviving  as she is making use of what she has been given. She meets a young woman at her job who later begins to match her up with older men on dates. When the men finish their dates with the narrator, they bring her back to their homes and have sex with her. After, the men bring the narrator shopping and send her to nice places for the weekends. The narrator then meets a character that changes her mind about everything and she decides to make a change. The narrator meets a man who drives a Harley-Davidson motorcycle who she happens to like and he treats her better than almost any other man. He treats her with respect and he doesn’t elicit anything from her. She realizes that she must change and she begins to take her life seriously. She quits her job at the Wal-Mart and becomes a full time student and becomes happy when her family is there to attend her graduation and receive her diploma. She did what she had to do and she survived!

In conclusion, the narrator of  “White Trash Primer” can be considered a survivor. She did what was necessary for her to survive. She obtained a  job while in school, saved funds for her and her family, and took the necessary actions to survive. She would have sex with men, and they would buy her clothes and take her out for dinner in return. The narrator used the the gullible aspects of the men she had sex with to aid in her survival. This would have continued until she met the man on the Harley-Davidson who gave her hope,  and made her realize she needed to make more of herself as a person. Facing all those hardships at such a young age, and her having to mature so rapidly, she did what she had to do to survive.