Appalachian values are traditional customs picked up by many generations, influencing attitudes and behaviors throughout the Appalachian area. These values have shaped the Appalachian region for many years, impacting the interactions among individuals. In Sharyn McCrumb’s She Walks These Hills and Loyal Jones’ “Appalachian Values,” particular inherited native values are discussed or portrayed within both works of Appalachian literature. Jones speaks of self-reliance, hospitality, and personalism, and how they can all be found in the Appalachian areas. These traits are personified in Martha Ayers’ desire to prove herself a fit deputy, Nora Bonesteel’s forever open door, and Harm Soley’s desire to please everyone. Emerson says “Man is his own
“Burning Bright: The Language and Storytelling of Appalachia and the Poetry and Prose of Ron Rash.” Shepard University. 2011. The.
Another known regional writer from this time period is Mary Wilkins Freeman. Similar to Jewett, her texts use the New England geographical setting. Mary Wilkins Freeman’s short stories and novels are local color examples of the New England area in which she was born. Her works include the New England dialects and traits, components of the area’s Puritan roots, and portrayals of life in rural and penurious New England. During the time of Freeman’s writing, many farmers had begun to move west, particularly because of the spread of railroads. This caused the rural New England population to drop tremendously. Freeman’s protagonists are mainly elderly women or young women of marriageable age of families who remained behind in this New England post-Civil War setting.
In the world of Appalachia, stereotypes are abundant. There are stories told of mountaineers as lazy, bewildered, backward, and yet happy and complacent people. Mountain women are seen as diligent, strong, hard willed, and overall sturdy and weathered, bearing the burden of their male counterparts. These ideas of mountain life did not come out of thin air; they are the direct product of sensational nineteenth century media including print journalism and illustrative art that has continuously mislead and wrongfully represented the people of Appalachia. These stories, written and told by outsiders, served very little purpose to Appalachian natives other than means of humiliation and degradation. They served mostly to convince readers of the need for so-called civilized people and companies to take over the land and industry of the region, in particular the need for mineral rights, railroads, and logging as the mountain folk were wasting those valuable resources necessary for the common good.
The book starts out with a chapter called “Over the Mountains”, which in my opinion for this chapter the author wanted the reader to understand what it was like to live on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains. This is where he brings out one of the main characters in this book, which is Henry Brackenridge. Mr. Brackenridge is a cultivated man in Pittsburgh. He was wealthy and he was there to ratify the Constitution. He was a Realist. He was a college friend of James Madison at College of New Jersey. He was also in George Washington’s post as a chaplain for the Revolutionary War. He believed that Indians needed to be assimilated into the American culture. “… ever to be converted into civilized ways, their legal rights were to be protected” (Hogeland 19). He will become one of the leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion.
Women Hollering Creek is a collection of several seemingly unconnected stories beginning with adolescence transitioning to the teenage years and ending with adulthood. While the two stories seem to have little in common, a closer examination shows there are many similarities as well as differences. “Women Hollering Creek” is a fictional story written using life experience relating to cultural differences while “The Lone Ranger...” is a narrative story written by a Native American about the challenges he faced during his own personal experience while trying to fit into another culture. As minorities, the main character of each story strives in an atte...
There has been much written about Isabella Lucy Bird being a unique individual, bold traveler, talented descriptive writer, and great example to women. These are all great ways to describe the well known traveler, however, there have been few efforts to proclaim her as the luminary of Christian faith that she is. In A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains Bird paints an awe inspiring picture of the harsh life and beautiful landscape of the Rocky Mountains in the early 19th century. Throughout her book, Bird gives grand descriptions of the breathtaking natural scenes she experiences along her travels in Lake Tahoe, Estes Park, Colorado City, Denver, Boulder and other areas within the great mountain range. Bird also recounts the hard way of life
Emerging from and dwelling within an all-consuming lamentation, the characters of William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! enwrap themselves in a world of hurt wherein they cannot or will not release the past. Each comes to know the tragic ends of lingering among an ever-present past while the here and now fades under fretful shadows of days gone by. As the narrative progresses. the major players in this installment of Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County grow ever more obsessed by what alternative actions different circumstances might have afforded. Trapped in his/her own notions of "what might have been" (115), Miss Rosa Coldfield's wistful, yet indignant exhortation, the historicized characters of Thomas Sutpen and Miss Rosa remain fixated by Antebellum illusions--he in a desperate effort to gain what he could not, she in bitter remembrance of what had never, but might have been.
Waller, Altina. "Two Words in the Tennessee Mountains: Exploring the Origins of Appalachian Stereotypes." Journal of Social History 32 (1999): 963.
“Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor, was published in 1955. The genre of the story is southern gothic. Gothic tales are usually creepy and take place in a small or enclosed place, like the barn loft where most of the action in the story takes place (Shmoop Editorial Team). Another key element that makes this story gothic is the missing leg and missing glass eye. The reason the story is southern gothic and not just gothic is because the setting takes place in the south. Half of the setting takes place in the kitchen making it clear that the story is from Hulga and Mrs. Hopewell’s point of view. The climatic action takes place in the barn loft emphasizing Hulga’s vulnerability. “Good Country People” describes identity, society and class,
She cites Edwin James, chronicler of Major Stephen Long’s survey, who called the Upper Midwest a “dreary plain, wholly unfit for cultivation” (39) and “uninhabitable by a people depending on agriculture for subsistence.” (40) This commentary stemmed from its lack of potential he saw in the land even before its urbanization. This reveals how useless the territory was perceived to be, even by its earliest settlers. Because of James’s influence and his views on the area, its reputation has taken an irreversible blow to its
Appalachian Music Appalachee - people on the other side Folk music - What is folk music? Traditional songs existing in countries. Handed down through generations. Passes on by word of mouth, not written in musical notation. Don't know who wrote it. Melody and lyrics change as they are passed on.
Sue Hubbell, an amateur botanist, a bee keeper and a heart torn women, who decides to stay on her Ozark 105 acre “something more like ninety-nine”(3) farm in the Ozarks of Missouri after her long term marriage ends in divorce. In her book, “A Country Year, Living the Questions” Hubbell describes how her life as a 50 year old women living alone over comes heartbreak and poverty living off the land that she alone doesn’t own “ that those who inhabit the land and use it have a real claim to it in a nonlegal sort of way.”(6)
More often than not, Appalachia catches a bad reputation for being known as an area full of “dumb, ignorant hillbillies”, when the reality is far from that. In David Baldacci’s novel, Wish You Well, the reader is introduced to a one-of-a-kind, sweet, ginger, mountain kid named Jimmy “Diamond” Skinner. He is carefree and seemingly unafraid of anything, going so far as to cross a gorge on a log, sliding under a train that can begin to move at any minute, and has had a fair share of confrontations with a bear. While Diamond is very fun and adventurous, he has never been formally educated. This would easily make the reader believe that he fits the exact stereotype that I mentioned earlier, however, that is not the case.
“We don’t study as children, and we don’t make our kids study when we're parents.” (Vance 147) In discussions of Hillbilly Elegy, a controversial issue is whether the book can be an example for the entirety of hillbilly culture. While some argue that the testimonies of J.D. Vance in Hillbilly Elegy can’t possibly depict the entirety of hillbilly culture, others contend that his personal experiences bring out truths about the lives of hillbillies.(Graff and Birkenstein xviii) Often times throughout Vance's memoir he uses the word “we” as if the statements, stories, and situations he recounts in his memoir are synonymous in every hillbilly life. “We choose not to work when we should be looking for jobs.” (Vance
My first impression of the Whitney Plantation proved to be overrated. Upon arrival my eyes immediately admired the scenery standing before me. As the lake glistened and reflected back a white church building surrounded by luscious palmettos, I could not help but fantasize about how beautiful it must have been to live on a plantation. My heart longed to be transported back to 18th century Louisiana. My idealized version of Whitney was shortly lived as I soon discovered that beautiful landscapes are capable of holding dark tragic histories.