Place In Appalachian Literature

A sense of place is particularly important in Appalachian literature. Place, or home, is where someone belongs. It is the attachment, emotions, and memories associated with a specific area. Oftentimes, it is where one feels most comfortable. For many of the characters in Appalachian literature a sense of place stems from different areas, whether it be the actual land or the people surrounding them. However, for most of them, a sense of place is a driving force behind their decisions and actions.
In One Foot in Eden, by Ron Rash, an attachment to the land is a motivation for many of the main characters. In Appalachian literature, the landscape often functions as a character in of itself. This means that the character’s sense of home is very …show more content…
In “Root Hog, or Die”, Artie Ann Bates return to her place after leaving for college. The narrator experiences linguistic bigotry, or the idea that one dialect, is better than others, at her college and medical school in Lexington. This biogotry often applies to one’s place as well. Bates finds that there are those that consider her home to be less than theirs. She explains, “one of my toughest challenges was learning to defend the background that had produced me” (54). She writes later that she eventually learns to stand up for her home and herself. Bates originally returns to her home after spending a semester at a university, then realizes that in order for her to better understand her own place, she must leave. After completing medical school, Bates returns to eastern Kentucky: “Returning home in 1987 was like running through the ribbon at the finish line…. I knew the rules here and everything would fall into its natural place” (Bates 57). It takes time to readjust, but once she does, she finds that she can reclaim the Appalachian identify again. Identity goes hand in hand with a sense of place. Each area has its own distinctiveness. A place has its own customs and traditions, and oftentimes it is hard to look at them objectively. She has lived both sides, in the region and not, and she feels it her duty to preserve that area through writing. Bates describes her writing as being motivated by her child and the children in their family because “they must know their Appalachian past” (Bates 89). The desire to preserve goes along with a sense of place. Bates’ association with where she comes from drew her back there and also motivates her to write about