The Confederate Flag symbolizes southern pride in heritage deeply rooted in slavery; these values are reflected in the way that Mrs. Crater exchanged her daughter for the work of Mr. Shiftlet. The way she lacks guilt for her behavior is similar to the attitude of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd. In their song “Sweet Home Alabama”, they wrote “Now we all did what we could do / Now Watergate does not bother me / Does your conscience bother you?” (Skynyrd). Lynyrd Skynyrd’s dismissive tone and unapologetic way of stating that “people did all they could do” to stop slavery, shows that slavery, to them was free labor, just as for Mrs. Crater, Mr. Shiftlet was free labor. Before he came she could not afford to get things on her farm fixed, so when she saw the opportunity for free labor, she could not refuse.…show more content… Crater claimed that, no matter what, she would not allow any man to have her daughter; however, she told Mr. Shiftlet “‘Any man come after her,’ the old woman said, ‘ ‘ll have to stay around the place’” (149 O’Connor), contradicting her earlier statement. Mrs. Crater’s commentary suggests trading her daughter and is very similar to Southern concepts in the times of slavery and leads the reader to believe that those values form her morals. The Confederate Flag represents Southern heritage and how slavery has played a part in it, and therefore Mrs. Crater’s heritage as well. She is happy for this man to “come after” her daughter because she embraces these values represented by this part of her history and “to be ashamed of the symbol is to be ashamed of who they are, of who their family has been” (Ayers). Mrs. Crater’s lack of guilt in her actions stems from her strong, old, Southern values shows she is anything but
