Ivy Rowes Ideas of the Past in Fair and Tender Ladies Essay -- Englis

Ivy Rowe's Ideas of the Past in Fair and Tender Ladies In Lee Smith's Fair and Tender Ladies, Ivy Rowe has a constant attachment to her past. This attachment is one of the main themes in the novel. It is one of her main reasons for letter writing and why she does some of the things that she does, because she does not want to lose her grip on her past. Ivy Rowe, in Lee Smith's Fair and Tender Ladies, uses letter writing to keep a hold of her grip on the past and where she came from. In Letters from Sugar Fork, Ivy writes for a number of reasons. She wants to see how and what other people are doing, wanting to improve her writing skills, asking for help from her grandfather at one point, in addition to just having some way to release all her thoughts and emotions. These letters, being a window into her mind, show us the progression of her as she grows. There is one letter in particular, which shows how important this correspondence is to her. "I hate you, you do not write back nor be my Pen Friend I think you are the Ice Queen instead. I do not have a Pen Friend or any friend in the world, I have only Silvaney who laghs and laghs and Beulah who is mad now all the time and Ethel who calls a spade a spadeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦I will not send this letter as I remain your hateful, Ivy Rowe."(Smith, 17) This letter shows just how important letter writing is to Ivy. As she is not able to receive correspondence from Hanneke she cannot fully express herself and has a hard time with her anger, as is evidence by the excerpt from her letter. Ivy also writes to Mrs. Brown about her experiences in Sugar Fork. She talks about how she shot a gun and is able to paint a vivid picture of the winter season. "Ice just shining on each and e... ...her last letter defines her life when she says "Slow down now, slow down now Ivy. This is the taste of spring. I never have slowed down." This shows her need to continue and persevere through all she has been through. Ivy as a character goes through a lot in her life and by writing these letters and expelling all her feelings and emotions onto the paper she was able to find a sort of peace with her existence. Bibliography: Henderson, Lara Beth A True Storyteller: Appalachia's own Lee Smith October 1, 2000, http://www.etsu.edu/haleyd/engl3134/ejournal/henderson.html Robbins, Dorothy Dodge "Personal and Cultural Transformation: Letter Writing in Lee Smith's 'Fair and Tender Ladies'" Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction (Winter 1997, Volume 38 n.2): p. 135 Hill, Dorothy Combs "An Interview with Lee Smith" The Southern Quarterly 28.2(1990):5-19