Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
The Racial Other in Fred Chappell’s Brighten the Corner Where You Are
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Despite the continued legacy of whitewashing in Appalachia, increased attention to the Affrilachian poetry movement and the study of post-1980 Latino migration to Southern Appalachia has begun to confront this dilemma. However, few scholars have examined constructions of whiteness and the presence of racial diversity in novels by white Appalachian authors. I argue that race is not a secondary or invisible presence in these novels, but instead plays a central role in conceptions of Appalachian identity. My work places Fred Chappell’s Brighten the Corner Where You Are (1989) in conversation with Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark to elucidate Chappell’s construction of race in Appalachia.
I argue that Joe Robert’s anxiety about the postwar era and the industrialization of Appalachia manifests in dark, racialized conceptions of the “other.” Racial anxieties and language frame the novel, which begins with Joe Robert’s encounter with a “devil-possum,” a north-migrating creature that Joe Robert describes to have Mexican and mestizo traits, and ends with the lynching of Charles Darwin. Although the text primarily follows Joe Robert, the narrator Jess’ interjections and framing of the text highlight that Joe Robert’s racialized fears are the product of his own imagination. Ironically, encounters with racialized others offer moments of redemption to Joe Robert amid the fracturing he experiences when his appeals to Western conceptions of reason and wisdom fail. The novel therefore suggests that migration and racial cooperation act not as threats to Appalachia, but rather as integral solutions to the marginalization the region faces.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Marcy Pedzwater is a PhD student in the department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her scholarly interests include the intersections of race, gender, and culture in twentieth-century North and Latin American literature.
Conference Subthemes
Diversity and Inclusion, Migration
The Racial Other in Fred Chappell’s Brighten the Corner Where You Are
Despite the continued legacy of whitewashing in Appalachia, increased attention to the Affrilachian poetry movement and the study of post-1980 Latino migration to Southern Appalachia has begun to confront this dilemma. However, few scholars have examined constructions of whiteness and the presence of racial diversity in novels by white Appalachian authors. I argue that race is not a secondary or invisible presence in these novels, but instead plays a central role in conceptions of Appalachian identity. My work places Fred Chappell’s Brighten the Corner Where You Are (1989) in conversation with Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark to elucidate Chappell’s construction of race in Appalachia.
I argue that Joe Robert’s anxiety about the postwar era and the industrialization of Appalachia manifests in dark, racialized conceptions of the “other.” Racial anxieties and language frame the novel, which begins with Joe Robert’s encounter with a “devil-possum,” a north-migrating creature that Joe Robert describes to have Mexican and mestizo traits, and ends with the lynching of Charles Darwin. Although the text primarily follows Joe Robert, the narrator Jess’ interjections and framing of the text highlight that Joe Robert’s racialized fears are the product of his own imagination. Ironically, encounters with racialized others offer moments of redemption to Joe Robert amid the fracturing he experiences when his appeals to Western conceptions of reason and wisdom fail. The novel therefore suggests that migration and racial cooperation act not as threats to Appalachia, but rather as integral solutions to the marginalization the region faces.
