Outline
I. Thesis statement: Bone notices that the females are, for the most part, oppressed by their male counterparts, and she eventually ends up identifying with the males and the one female in the novel who is most like them.

II. The women are burdened with raising large families early in their lives.
A. Anney is an unwed mother who must struggle to raise her children.
B. Aunt Alma is very busy with her children while her husband, Wade, is never around, for one reason or another.
C. Travis is never around to help his wife, Ruth. The children have turned out badly. One, Tommy Lee, is a thief who has stolen from his mother.

III. The men are often carousing and drinking, leaving the women alone. They are, for the most part, insensitive to their wives emotional needs. Often, husbands and wives briefly separate.
A. Alma leaves Wade because of his carousing. Later she takes him back. However, after their infant dies, Wade tells Alma that she is too ugly for him to make another child with her. Alma’s subsequent insanity results from this insensitivity.
B. Glen is incapable of supporting his family. On one occasion, Anney must prostitute herself.
C. Uncle Earle is separated because he always cheats. According to him, it is not his fault.
D. Travis, Ruth’s husband, is a drunk.

IV. Bone develops many male traits.
A. She burglarizes a Woolworth’s. Most burglars are male.
B. She develops children’s games in which the female characters get to be as bad as the male characters.

V. Conclusion: Bone believes men have it much better than women. On numerous occasions, she openly wishes she were a man. She looks up to her Uncle Earle, who embodies the Boatwright male traits. Ultimately, Bone ends up closest to Aunt Raylene, a woman whose closest relationship was with another woman.

Outline
I. Thesis Statement: Bone’s attitudes of social class and low status are linked to her perceptions of physical attractiveness. Ugliness is discussed openly throughout the book, and its constant presence contributes to Bone’s feelings of inferiority.

II. The women often talk openly about physical beauty.
A. Little Earle is teased for being ugly.
B. Alma mentions to Bone that it is good that she is smart so that she can compensate for not being attractive.
C. Anney talks to Bone, before Ruth’s funeral, about how ugly Ruth was and how she had had children to compensate for this.

III. Bone befriends Shannon Pearl on the school bus.
A. Shannon Pearl is an exceptionally ugly child. Even strangers are rude to her and comment on her ugliness.
B. Bone’s friendship with Shannon may partly be the result of Bone wanting to feel superior; she has found someone uglier than herself.
C. When the two children argue, the...