The Old and the New

What is the paradox that Cash observes in popular descriptions of how the Old South evolved into the New South? How does he resolve that paradox?

• Cash observes that "millions placidly believe in both notions" that the Old South evolved into the New South as a result of the Southern Society being rapidly and increasingly industrialized and modernized both in body and in mind. Furthermore, people believed that this new south was identical to the North and just as industrialized and modernized. Cash resolves the paradox by stating that the break between the Old South and New South was greatly exaggerated even though the New South significantly changed the surrounding land it still had "its tap root in the Old South" and was like an English Church whose foundations were carved by the Old South and still contained many aspects of the Old South.

What do you think Cash means when he writes that the mind of the South "is continuous with the past"? How is this idea presented in Katherine Anne Porter's "The Witness"?

• Cash states that the South "is continuous with the past" in order to express the idea that the mind and Southern society of the New South correlates with that of the Old South in that Southern society is not molded by the New South but by its roots in the Old South. I believe that Katherine Anne Porter expresses this point in "The Witness" by incorporating two main characters or groups of characters. She uses Uncle Jimbilly to illustrate a member of the Old South and its roots and how they affect the ideas and the minds of the children, the New South.