While A Southern Family is certainly not feminist in the political sense and reveals neither anger not mystification about female roles in society, it is feminist. That is, characters are explored largely through their gender roles. In that sense, Godwin falls into a tradition that began with Jane Austin and continues in the writing of women to the present.

Godwin's concern with class and its effect on individual development puts A Southern Family squarely in the contemporary milieu. While a sense of place is also consistent with contemporary concerns, this novel reflects the original concern of such early to midcentury novelists as Willa Cather, William Faulkner, Ellen Glasgow, and Eudora Welty. And in A Southern Family, the introspection of Godwin's characters puts her squarely in a Southern literary tradition where characters (and authors speaking through them) examine and reexamine their society and their places in it...