The unmistakable likeness of Dolly Parton — with bright eyes and hair reaching for heaven — has been immortalized on murals in Nashville. She has been emblazoned on official state license plates on minivans cruising toward Knoxville. And she has been sculpted in bronze outside the courthouse in Sevierville, the little Tennessee town in the Smokies where the legend began. She inspired drag brunches in Atlanta and a Mardi Gras club in New Orleans, where crowds would put on wigs and boas and sequins in an effort to be just a little more like her.

In the South, where she was born and raised and steeped in long traditions of storytelling and self-deprecating humor that she harnessed into a singular career, Ms. Parton ascended from successful singer and actress into a figure larger than life. Since her death on Tuesday at age 80, many of her fellow Southerners said they were not simply mourning an icon. They were mourning one of their own. “She loved this area and she was proud of it, and we saw ourselves differently because of her,” said Regina Murray, who lives in Knoxville, Tenn., and grew up near the Sevier County line.

Beyond the South, in a country and culture splintered into countless silos organized by race, partisan affiliation, class, religion, generation, sexual orientation and gender identity, Ms. Parton has been recognized as a rare individual who engendered affection and respect across many of those lines. She could sometimes test the limits of that bond, taking stances that many in the South might object to. Yet it still endured. “She would challenge you to not love her,” said Scott Borchetta, the president and chief executive of Big Machine Label Group.

Ms. Parton’s fans in the South idolized her for all the ways she was exceptional — the musical talent, the charisma, the altruism. Yet so much of the love was also grounded in a sense that she wasn’t all that different from them either. She shared an accent and a sense of humor. Like many Southerners, she embraced her faith, which for her was a form of Christianity anchored in love. She appreciated a pork roast, especially the fatty part. And even as her gifts and her work ethic opened a broader world to her, she always came home.