“A Place for all That is Lost”
Ron Rash’s One Foot in Eden is a story of desperation, longing, murder, and a disappearing way of life. It takes place in South Carolina in the 1950s. The story is told from five character’s points of view. It begins with Sheriff Alexander trying to solve a murder, while at the same time coming to grips with his own feelings about the mountain community and people he has left behind. He also has to contend with the exploitation of the community by Carolina Power Company, who is eager to flood the area. He is joined by Amy, the wife of a local farmer; her husband Billy; their son Isaac; and the deputy, Bobby in revealing the tale of the Jocassee community and its people. The story encompasses twenty years in the Jocassee neighborhood and along with the narrators; other characters important to the story are introduced to the reader. Widow Glendower is one of those characters.
Widow Glendower is perceived by some in the valley to be a witchy-woman. She is a mid-wife to many in the community, a doctor for their illnesses, and a seer of things to come. While she may appear to some as a way to tie the other characters together, she is an essential part of the story. The geography and people of Appalachia have historically been demoralized by outside influences. The land and people are extraordinary for numerous reasons, one of which is their resilience to the offenses they have suffered for the greater good of others. They have been repeatedly sacrificed for the good of people or businesses somewhere else. The endurance, faith and interdependence, of the people and the land, are embodied in Widow Glendower.
She symbolizes the culture’s endurance and sense of place. In an interview with Karen...
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Bjerre, Thomas Ærvold. “The Natural World Is The Most Universal Of Languages”: An Interview with Ron Rash.” Appalachian Journal 32.2 (2007): 216-227. Literary Reference Center. Web. 16 Nov. 2013.
Engel, Mary Ella. “The Appalachian “Granny”: Testing the Boundaries of Female Power in Late-19th-Century Appalachian Georgia.” Appalachian Journal 37.3/4 (2010): 210-225 Literary Reference Center. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.
Pierce, Peter. “Superstition In The Shadow Of The Appalachians.” Australian, The (2011): 23. Newspaper Source. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
Rash, Ron. One Foot in Eden. New York: Picador, 2002. Print.
Shurbutt, Sylvia Bailey. “Burning Bright: The Language and Storytelling of Appalachia and the Poetry and Prose of Ron Rash.” Shepard University. 2011. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
Zacharias, Karen Spears. "Ron Rash Speaks with Karen Spears Zacharias. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013.
James, Edward, Janet James, and Paul Boyer. Notable American Women, 1607-1950. Volume III: P-Z. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Print.
Further, throughout the book, Sadie and Bessie continuously reminds the reader of the strong influence family life had on their entire lives. Their father and mother were college educated and their father was the first black Episcopal priest and vice principal at St. Augustine Co...
Web. The Web. The Web. 13 Nov. 2013. Bartlett, Bruce.
In this essay, McFarland discusses Native American poetry and Sherman Alexie’s works. He provides an overview of Alexie’s writing in both his poems and short stories. A brief analysis of Alexie’s use of humor is also included.
The small community of Hallowell, Maine was no different than any other community in any part of the new nation – the goals were the same – to survive and prosper. Life in the frontier was hard, and the settlement near the Kennebec Valley was no different than what the pioneers in the west faced. We hear many stories about the forefathers of our country and the roles they played in the early days but we don’t hear much about the accomplishments of the women behind those men and how they contributed to the success of the communities they settled in. Thanks to Martha Ballard and the diary that she kept for 27 years from 1785-1812, we get a glimpse into...
Byatt, A.S. “The Thing in the Forest.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 352-67.
People in these Montana prairies had an isolated life where “Every generation relearns the rules its fathers have forgotten”, cursed nature when it threatens their livelihood, yet realized that “This land owes you nothing” [p. 60]. This was a time and region where the difference between what was expected of men and women was paramount. Children grew up working hard, knowing their place in their society and grew up quickly as a result. Being somewhat of a tomboy, Blunt could handle farm equipment and chores as well as her brother, yet was still expected to learn how to cook, clean and care for the men. As with previous generations, it was expected that she follow a planned path to becoming a rancher’s wife. But Judy Blunt always felt there was something more to this hard, bleak life and began a long journey towards breaking clean from the constraints of her upbringing.
implacability of the natural world, the impartial perfection ofscience, the heartbreak of history. The narrative is permeated with insights about language itself, its power to distort and destroy meaning, and to restore it again to those with stalwart hearts.
In Mary Hoods “How Far She Went” A grandmother struggles with the burden of experience, loss and a life of unsparing decisions; where a girl strives to live in a naïve and free spirited illusion. The paths of a grandmother and her granddaughter soon collide when experience and naivety rendezvous on a dirt road in the south. “How Far She Went” illustrates how generational struggles and contretemps can mold people and predispose their lives and the way
In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” O’Connor introduces the reader to a family who represents the juxtaposition between old and new Southern culture. The grandmother, in particular, represents the old South because she focuses on her appearance, manners, and other attributes that are considered the stereotypical image of femininity. She is a self proclaimed lady whose “collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace” and “at her neckline, she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet” (405-406). In fact, she yearned to dress ideally so that “in case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead...
O’Conner, Flannery. “Good Country People.” Literature An Introduction To Fiction, Poetry, And Drama. Eds. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia 3rd ed. New York Longman, 2003. 247-261
Web. The Web. The Web. 28 Feb. 2014. Hoggart, Simon.
In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, O’Connor introduces the reader to a family representative of the old and new Southern culture. The grandmother represents the old South by the way in which she focuses on her appearnace, manners, and gentile ladylike behavior. O’Connor writes “her collars and cuffs were organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady”(O’Connor 118). In this short story, “the wild diproportion of the terms, the vapid composure that summons up the ultimate violence only to treat it as a rare social opportuinty, and the cool irony with which O’Connor presents the sentence makes it both fearful and ludicrous”(Asals 132). The irony that O’Connor uses points out the appalling characteristics of the grandmother’s self-deception that her clothes make her a lady and turns it into a comic matter. Flannery O’Connor goes to great length to give the reader insight into the characters by describing their clothes and attitudes. The fact that the grandmother took so much time in preparing herself for the trip exemplifies the old Southern tradition of self-presentation and self-pride. The grandmother takes pride in the way she presents herself because she wants everyone to know that she is a “lady”.
Web. The Web. The Web. 14 May 2014. Stanley, Jay.