Identical setting conditions generate opposite characters depending on social position

Evidence

Character itself is a product of place and culture. We need to know in what atmosphere a character operates in order to understand the significance of the action. Scarlett O’Hara of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind operates as she does because she grew up in heat, damp, and luxury, surrounded by slaves whose loyalty she counts on without examining their lives. Sethe of Toni Morrison’s Beloved behaves as she does because she grew up enslaved in the same heat and damp, in perpetual terror of the master who comes for her and her babies after she reaches freedom. — Janet Burroway; Elizabeth Stuckey-French; Ned Stuckey-French, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition, 331

Categorization

• XREF: Juxtaposing Scarlett and Sethe in the same heat and damp recalls the oppositional reading of Gone with the Wind offered by Toni Morrison’s fiction itself. — connects to: The same sign carries differently oriented class accents simultaneously; Audiences can decode the same message in a globally contrary or oppositional way; Ideological positions reproduce social positions in transfigured form. (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Identical interaction forms recur across radically different social groups #expands (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 198
• Forms of interaction retain identity across varied contents and historical settings #qualifies (0.78) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 202
• The same sign carries differently oriented class accents simultaneously #expands (0.75)
• Audiences can decode the same message in a globally contrary or oppositional way #corroborates (0.70)
• Ideological positions reproduce social positions in transfigured form. #expands (0.55)