In William Gay’s Provinces of Night, poor socioeconomic conditions play a critical role in shaping the motives and overall development of some of the novel’s central characters. Understanding the implications of abjection within Ackerman 's Field, Tennessee allows readers to examine how the nature versus nurture phenomenon influences people within the rural landscape. The theme of abandonment is prevalent among several central characters within Gay’s Provinces of Night, and similarly within Robert Frost’s “The Death of a Hired Man,” and “Home Burial. In Provinces of Night, E.F. Bloodworth abandons his wife and children, disregarding their emotional and financial dependency, Fleming’s mother deserts both a son and jealous husband, which then
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The Bloodworth’s, with the exception of Fleming, live stagnant, unprogressive lives. Place and character become intertwined and the two can no longer be mutually exclusive; Brady and Boyd, specifically, represent “these folk from Arkansas, Tennesse, Missouri, [who] did not seem to melt into the common culture of the city…they were who they were…unassimilated, unrepentant, unreconstructed. All these folk seemed to have more past than future” (Gay 166). Fleming desperately wants to leave this “unassimilated, unrepentant, and unreconstructed” lifestyle in his past—an existence where “trash always settles to the bottom”(Gay 166). William Giraldi, in his article A World Almost Rotten: The Fiction of William Gay, mentions Flemings “civility, moral code, grace under pressure and desire to write” (80) and contrasts him to the rest of his family—a “demented” grandmother, Brady, who “practices voodoo,” Warren “the alcoholic” and Boyd, the absentee father who “has left for Detroit to trail his faithless wife [Fleming’s mother]” (Giraldi …show more content…
Through this quote, readers can infer that both E.F Bloodworth and Silas feel as if “home” is an environment that they can always returnto. Home often represents family, morals, loyalty and honesty; abandoning home essentially correlates to disregarding these values. Though both men abandoned “home,” the sense of place and belonging that is associated with home remains. The concept “home” stays timeless, which allows Silas and E.F. Bloodworth to return to such a place that, as Mary states, “you somehow haven’t to
The Bloodworth’s, with the exception of Fleming, live stagnant, unprogressive lives. Place and character become intertwined and the two can no longer be mutually exclusive; Brady and Boyd, specifically, represent “these folk from Arkansas, Tennesse, Missouri, [who] did not seem to melt into the common culture of the city…they were who they were…unassimilated, unrepentant, unreconstructed. All these folk seemed to have more past than future” (Gay 166). Fleming desperately wants to leave this “unassimilated, unrepentant, and unreconstructed” lifestyle in his past—an existence where “trash always settles to the bottom”(Gay 166). William Giraldi, in his article A World Almost Rotten: The Fiction of William Gay, mentions Flemings “civility, moral code, grace under pressure and desire to write” (80) and contrasts him to the rest of his family—a “demented” grandmother, Brady, who “practices voodoo,” Warren “the alcoholic” and Boyd, the absentee father who “has left for Detroit to trail his faithless wife [Fleming’s mother]” (Giraldi …show more content…
Through this quote, readers can infer that both E.F Bloodworth and Silas feel as if “home” is an environment that they can always returnto. Home often represents family, morals, loyalty and honesty; abandoning home essentially correlates to disregarding these values. Though both men abandoned “home,” the sense of place and belonging that is associated with home remains. The concept “home” stays timeless, which allows Silas and E.F. Bloodworth to return to such a place that, as Mary states, “you somehow haven’t to