Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
The Frozen Deaths of Ron Rash
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Hypothermia and its effects appear to be a common cause for concern in Rash’s work. In his novel One Foot in Eden, we see Bobby worry about the condition afflicting Sheriff Alexander and the drowned boy he carries in his arms. In Burning Bright’s “Into the Gorge,” Jesse mentions his great-aunt dying in a manner that, he later learned, was characteristic of the affliction. Also in Burning Bright, we see Jared ultimately succumb to hypothermia in “The Ascent.” “A Sort of Miracle” in Nothing Gold Can Stay captures Denton’s similar fate.
It’s the last two stories, both collected in Something Rich and Strange, that I plan to research. Through examining the ways in which (potentially fragile) masculinity and a sense of duty played a role in their untimely deaths, readers and scholars of Rash’s short stories can have an increased understanding of the ways in which Rash considers these types of intersections when constructing his works. I also plan to thoroughly examine how Rash portrays the space outside of the men’s homes as “wilderness” and dangerous though they’re not far from where they reside. I then plan to connect these portrayals of environment and masculinity to a broader western worldview to better represent both the ideas that may inform Rash’s narratives as well as how we read and interpret them.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Jessica Cory is the editor of and a contributor to the forthcoming Mountains Piled Upon Mountains: New Appalachian Nature Writing (WVU Press, 2019) and her work has been published in A Poetry Congeries, ellipsis..., and other journals. She teaches in the English Department at Western Carolina University.
The Frozen Deaths of Ron Rash
Hypothermia and its effects appear to be a common cause for concern in Rash’s work. In his novel One Foot in Eden, we see Bobby worry about the condition afflicting Sheriff Alexander and the drowned boy he carries in his arms. In Burning Bright’s “Into the Gorge,” Jesse mentions his great-aunt dying in a manner that, he later learned, was characteristic of the affliction. Also in Burning Bright, we see Jared ultimately succumb to hypothermia in “The Ascent.” “A Sort of Miracle” in Nothing Gold Can Stay captures Denton’s similar fate.
It’s the last two stories, both collected in Something Rich and Strange, that I plan to research. Through examining the ways in which (potentially fragile) masculinity and a sense of duty played a role in their untimely deaths, readers and scholars of Rash’s short stories can have an increased understanding of the ways in which Rash considers these types of intersections when constructing his works. I also plan to thoroughly examine how Rash portrays the space outside of the men’s homes as “wilderness” and dangerous though they’re not far from where they reside. I then plan to connect these portrayals of environment and masculinity to a broader western worldview to better represent both the ideas that may inform Rash’s narratives as well as how we read and interpret them.
