Each of the authors in the three short stories, Andreas Lee's "Anthropology," Alice Walker's "Roselily," and William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" use a Southern background to show how people are ingrained to their past, and fearful of change. They each use Southern culture to show how it develops the personalities and inner feelings of the characters. Each story shows the fear and struggle of people who have made a change, or who would like to make a change, but are afraid of what change will mean to their lives and culture as they know it.

In Anthropology, as the word implies, you see the physical, social, material, and cultural developments of human beings who have risen above their "place," after having been born black in the South.

Andrea Lee, portraying herself, in a conversation with her cousin, shows the feelings of the classes of people in the...