Waiting For The End Of The World Ron Rash Analysis

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Ron Rash is a phenomenal writer, who in a few conscientious strokes, is able to depict the harsh, impecunious life of the South and make it universally relatable. From a bar guitarist who “...lost (his) teaching job, lost(his) wife, and lost (his) child…” to a farmer whose land “ was all rock and slant. You couldn’t grow a toenail…” Rash uses his observational, rich knowledge of the south to address both the good and bad of the world without a mere suggestion to the reader to empathize the protagonists as neither do they for themselves. The protagonist in “Waiting For The End Of The World” has faced many hardships in his life as he suggests, “Let God or evolution or whatever put us here in the first place start again from scratch because this isn’t working.” Yet, Rash doesn’t ask the reader to feel sorry for the protagonist who is just a man trying to survive in a world …show more content…

Hartley got down on one knee, closed his left hand on the scruff of the dog’s neck as he settled the blade against its throat...The dog didn’t cry out or snarl. It merely sagged in Hartley’s grip. Blood darkened the road. Rash adds that it was not the first time Hartley bite his teeth in the heart because he had once turned down “meat (that) had a deep wood-smoke odor” from his neighbor which left his wife and child salivating because he couldn’t afford it. During an interview with Daily Yonder, Rash said, My characters tend to be in pretty precarious situations, but I hope the reader recognizes that these concerns, these motivations, are human. These are people in a different landscape, but we understand them as human beings, and like so many people, they’re doing the best they can with what life has given them. Rash portrays his characters with decency through their hardship to enable the reader to identify with these people who are thought to be so different, but in reality are just trying to survive through hardships like the rest of the

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