Hillbilly Elegy

by

J. D. Vance

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Hillbilly Elegy makes teaching easy.

Aunt Wee (Lori Vance) Character Analysis

J.D.’s aunt, and Bev’s younger sister. Aunt Wee dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen and quickly married an abusive husband who forbade her from visiting the rest of her family. With the help of Mamaw and Papaw, she escaped this situation, got a job working in radiology, and remarried a kind man. Throughout Hillbilly Elegy, Vance calls upon Aunt Wee’s memories and anecdotes to fill out his depiction of other family members and defining moments in his life. He also frequently uses Aunt Wee’s new life as a model for what it might look like to leave behind the downsides of hillbilly life and the cycles of abuse it sometimes perpetuates.

Aunt Wee (Lori Vance) Quotes in Hillbilly Elegy

The Hillbilly Elegy quotes below are all either spoken by Aunt Wee (Lori Vance) or refer to Aunt Wee (Lori Vance) . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Hillbilly Identity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

Within two generations, the transplanted hillbillies had largely caught up to the native population in terms of income and poverty level. Yet their financial success masked their cultural unease, and if my grandparents caught up economically, I wonder if they ever truly assimilated. They always had one foot in the new life and one foot in the old one. They slowly acquired a small number of friends but remained strongly rooted in their Kentucky homeland.

Related Characters: J.D. Vance (speaker), Mamaw, Papaw , Bev Vance, Aunt Wee (Lori Vance) , Uncle Jimmy
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Hillbilly Elegy LitChart as a printable PDF.
Hillbilly Elegy PDF

Aunt Wee (Lori Vance) Quotes in Hillbilly Elegy

The Hillbilly Elegy quotes below are all either spoken by Aunt Wee (Lori Vance) or refer to Aunt Wee (Lori Vance) . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Hillbilly Identity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

Within two generations, the transplanted hillbillies had largely caught up to the native population in terms of income and poverty level. Yet their financial success masked their cultural unease, and if my grandparents caught up economically, I wonder if they ever truly assimilated. They always had one foot in the new life and one foot in the old one. They slowly acquired a small number of friends but remained strongly rooted in their Kentucky homeland.

Related Characters: J.D. Vance (speaker), Mamaw, Papaw , Bev Vance, Aunt Wee (Lori Vance) , Uncle Jimmy
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis: