Representations of Region in Child of God and The Coming of Winter
Abstract
This paper investigates the way in which two 1970s-era novels, Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God and David Adams Richards’s The Coming of Winter, contribute to regionalist movements in Appalachia and the Maritimes. These novels undermine conventional images of the two regions: both present dark and violent portraits of the two spaces that counteract received images of Appalachia and the Maritimes as pastoral, welcoming, and quaint. Although there are few comparative studies between Appalachia and the Maritimes, reading McCarthy and Richards together suggests that there may be connections between the two regions that the political boundary separating them obscures.
RésuméCet article explore la manière par laquelle deux romans des années 1970, Child of God, de Cormac McCarthy, et The Coming of Winter, de David Adams Richards, ont contribué aux mouvements régionalistes dans les Appalaches et dans les Maritimes. Ces romans contredisent les images traditionnelles des deux régions : les deux présentent des portraits actuels, sombres et violents des deux espaces, qui sont bien loin des idées reçues sur les Appalaches et les Maritimes pastorales, accueillantes et paisibles. Bien qu’il n’existe que peu d’études comparatives entre les Appalaches et les Maritimes, en lisant McCarthy et Richards, on se rend compte qu’il y a peut être un rapport entre les deux régions que masquent les frontières politiques qui les séparent.
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