One Foot In Eden Literary Analysis

In One Foot in Eden, by Ron Rash a young man named Holland Winchester has disappeared without a trace in a small North Carolina town. Throughout the many narrations of One Foot in Eden, the novel lacks the most important, the victim who has been unfairly murdered. There are five other narrators that tell their own story in the timeline, which include: Sheriff Alexander, who is investigating; the husband who committed the crime; his wife; their young son; and the deputy aiding in the investigating. Throughout these narrations, Holland Winchester is told to be a trouble delinquent who has recently returned from the Korean War. Everyone is the town believes Holland Winchester is trouble, causing them to carry a deep grudge for Holland. No one seems to have pity for the young man or the sacrifice he made for this country. The novel’s characters silently portrayed as if Holland deserved to die. In reality, Holland Winchester is in fact the innocent victim who has been misunderstood and wrongly treated by his town, his lover, and her husband. Would Ron Rash’s readers see Holland Winchester in a different perspective if Holland’s side of the story was told? Would they believe he was an innocent man that was given an unfair treatment? Perhaps so. Here lies the untold story of the Korean War Veteran, Holland Winchester.
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When asked of his image of One Foot in Eden, he replied, “a farmer standing in his field, crops dying around him. He had a look of desperation of his face that transcended the drought” (Kingsbury). This is significant to the novel, there has recently been a drought that is causing the crops to slowly die and the local farmers to struggle. As a reader, a common question could be does these dying crops represent Holland Winchester? Holland’s life was a struggling drought, begging for affection, being left to die and his body never laid to