Peculiar people, hillbillies, white trash. In spite (or maybe, because) of the rekindled attention around Appalachia sparked by J.D. Vance’s controversial memoir Hillbilly Elegy (2016), this region is arguably still represented in the American imagination through old, derogatory, and worn-out stereotypes. As demonstrated by works such as Vance’s memoir and James Dickey’s Deliverance (1970) among others, the contemporary depiction of the Appalachian dweller still suffers from an inherent ambiguity: hillbillies are both symbols of an archaic, pre-modern purity; and “superlative”—as Gabe Rikard writes—examples of anthropological deviance. Focusing on Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God and Chris Offutt’s Kentucky Straight, this essay shows how these Appalachian writers adopt diametrical approaches at the hillbilly stereotype to comment upon, and denounce, the flagrant image of radical alterity projected upon the region by the American mainstream.
Hillbilly Eulogy: gli Appalachi contemporanei tra immaginario e letteratura
marco petrelli
2023-01-01
Abstract
Peculiar people, hillbillies, white trash. In spite (or maybe, because) of the rekindled attention around Appalachia sparked by J.D. Vance’s controversial memoir Hillbilly Elegy (2016), this region is arguably still represented in the American imagination through old, derogatory, and worn-out stereotypes. As demonstrated by works such as Vance’s memoir and James Dickey’s Deliverance (1970) among others, the contemporary depiction of the Appalachian dweller still suffers from an inherent ambiguity: hillbillies are both symbols of an archaic, pre-modern purity; and “superlative”—as Gabe Rikard writes—examples of anthropological deviance. Focusing on Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God and Chris Offutt’s Kentucky Straight, this essay shows how these Appalachian writers adopt diametrical approaches at the hillbilly stereotype to comment upon, and denounce, the flagrant image of radical alterity projected upon the region by the American mainstream.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
