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

common ivy Rowes Ideas of the Past in Fair and pestle LadiesIn Lee Smiths Fair and Tender Ladies, Ivy Rowe has a constantattachment to her past. This attachment is one of the main themes inthe novel. It is one of her main reasons for letter compose and whyshe does some of the things that she does, because she does non wantto lose her hairgrip on her past. Ivy Rowe, in Lee Smiths Fair and TenderLadies, uses letter create verbally to keep a hold of her grip on the past andwhere she came from.In Letters from Sugar Fork, Ivy prints for a number of reasons. Shewants to see how and what other people are doing, wanting to improveher writing skills, asking for help from her grandfather at one point,in addition to just having some way to release all her thoughts andemotions. These letters, being a windowpane into her mind, show us theprogression 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 ba ck nor be my draw up Friend I think you are the IceQueen 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 allthe time and Ethel who calls a spade a spadeI will not send thisletter as I remain your hateful, Ivy Rowe.(Smith, 17) This lettershows just how important letter writing is to Ivy. As she is not ableto receive correspondence from Hanneke she cannot fully expressherself and has a hard time with her anger, as is evidence by theexcerpt from her letter.Ivy also writes to Mrs. Brown about her experiences in Sugar Fork. Shetalks about how she shot a gun and is able to paint a vivid witness ofthe winter season. Ice just shining on each and e... ...her last letter defines her life when she says Slow downnow, slow down now Ivy. This is the admiration of spring. I never haveslowed down. This shows her need to continue and persevere throughall she has been through. Ivy as a character goes through a stri a in herlife and by writing these letters and expelling all her feelings andemotions onto the paper she was able to find a sort of peace with herexistence.BibliographyHenderson, Lara Beth A legitimate Storyteller Appalachias own Lee SmithOctober 1, 2000,http//www.etsu.edu/haleyd/engl3134/ejournal/henderson.htmlRobbins, Dorothy Dodge Personal and Cultural Transformation LetterWriting in Lee Smiths Fair and Tender Ladies Critique Studies inContemporary Fiction (Winter 1997, Volume 38 n.2) p. 135Hill, Dorothy Combs An Interview with Lee Smith The SouthernQuarterly 28.2(1990)5-19