Jackie and Waverly: Vehicles for Historical Fictions

"Historical Fiction: the genre of literature, film, etc., comprising narratives that take place in the past and are characterized chiefly by an imaginative reconstruction of historical events and personages."

When reading Southland, the character, Jackie Ishida, is constructed in semblance to other historical fiction characters especially to that of the character, Edward Waverly, from the novel, Waverly, by Sir Walter Scott. Sir Walter Scott is the creator of the supposed first historical novel which created the format for certain themes to become prominent within this genre. Waverly is the Romantic figure within the historical backdrop of the Jacobite Uprising of 1745. Romance or the Romantic, in this novel, is the glorification of war, the beautiful landscape, as well as his romantic relationships. He becomes a vehicle for the reader in order to traverse the Scotland landscape and meet the various historic figures who were a part of this uprising. As a Romantic figure, his characteristics are extremely different from the men and women he encounters. This allows him to become a vehicle for the reader in order to traverse this history through his eyes. The reader is then vaulted into this historic world in which the author allows us to view the discussed event without the bias of a character who is heavily involved in the narrative, but instead, a tourist wandering through history. 

First, it is interesting how both these characters tour through similar times of revolution, the Jacobite Uprising of 1745 and the Watts Riots of 1965. However, they tour through these events in a very passive manner. This passive state is created through the distinct opposition to other characters within the novel. In Waverly, the characters are seen in the lens of a realist novel versus the romanticized Waverly. Jackie Ishida is the same in this regard. The other characters are seen in this realm of realism, Frank's life before and after internment, Frank and Alma's the complexities of an interracial relationship in the 1950's, race relations in regards to law enforcement, etc. However, Jackie is always seen in the realm of the romantic, more specifically with her various relationships: Laura, Rebecca, Lanier, and Frank. In terms of her relationship with Frank, though her character should be seen as a biased figure due to her biological relationship to her grandfather, their distant relationship allows her to become the vehicle for the reader to see the historical events of 1965 and even earlier. Second, because of these two different genres working against each other, Jackie and Waverly become awkward figures never really at home within their own worlds, Romantic figures in a Realist world. Because of this awkwardness which often shows them as apathetic characters, they become selfish figures in which the uncovering of history is not for the people in relation to them but for themselves; Waverly wishes to experience his own Romanticized narrative versus Jackie finding out who she is through Frank's past. But because of this apathy, they are then used as a vehicle for the reader in which we can see these events and imagine for ourselves what this time was like.