Necessary Lies

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of forced sterilization, racism, violence, suicide, and sexual trauma.

Necessary Lies starkly depicts the economic disparities between Jane and the families she serves in Grace County. Jane’s clients strive to break out of the cycle of poverty, but their daily lives are consumed by the struggle for survival. The aid they receive from social workers like Jane provides only temporary relief, and their financial status subjects them to dehumanizing treatment at the hands of the state. As Jane navigates her privileged role as an upper-middle-class social worker, Ivy grapples with the entrenched nature of the cycle of poverty and its far-reaching impacts on her life and her family.

The narrative illustrates the cyclical nature of poverty, highlighting the difficulties the Jordans and the Harts face in breaking out of the economic conditions they were born into. All members of the families must devote themselves to work to keep the household afloat. Even Ivy and Mary Ella, though they are not legal adults, must labor on the tobacco farm to earn the money that the family needs. Their daily lives are focused on making ends meet, preventing the girls from focusing on their education or other factors that might help their futures. Because they are poor, both families receive money and clothing from the state-funded agency for which Jane works. This aid, however, is not enough to allow them to rise above poverty. Ivy and Mary Ella have entered into the same economic status their parents lived in, and the novel suggests that the circumstances will be no different for William as he ages.

The contrast between Jane’s profession and the struggles of the families in Grace County underscores the pervasive nature of poverty. Eli Jordan angrily emphasizes to Jane that she is unable to understand the stress of poverty’s cycle. Because she is upper middle class, she has had the means to live a comfortable life. Her job as a social worker, unlike the work that the Jordans and Harts undertake, is a pursuit that Jane takes on for mental stimulation, not because she is dependent on the income for survival. Ivy, on the other hand, frequently notes the stress the daily struggle to survive places on her. She explains that the time she spends with Henry Allen is the only moment when she is able to escape from the stress of poverty.

Throughout the novel, the state uses the cycle of poverty to justify its eugenics program. The other social workers argue that sterilization prevents the cycle of poverty from escalating. If Ivy were to have children, the family’s already thin resources would be stretched, increasing their need for financial assistance from the state. This would make it increasingly difficult for Ivy’s children to rise above their station. Despite the state’s claims, however, Ivy is able to support herself and a family financially, with the support of Henry Allen. The novel’s ending suggests that their life in California, where they have found work in the olive industry, has allowed them to live a more comfortable life than they would have otherwise had in the Carolinas. Ivy’s narrative directly counters the state’s rationale for her sterilization; rather than undergoing sterilization, it is ultimately by finding more lucrative work in another state that Ivy is able to break out of the cycle of poverty.