Bloodroot: Domestic Abuse in Rural Appalachia

ENG 210W
20 April 2013
Bloodroot: Domestic Abuse in Rural Appalachia Amy Greene’s national bestselling novel Bloodroot reveals the many controversies surrounding rural Appalachia and domestic violence towards women. In the beginning of the novel, Greene paints a beautiful landscape of the mountains. She describes their wild beauty and the safety of Byrdie’s cabin in the woods. She writes about the rich resources of the land and friendliness of the people. She writes of the magic folklores and healing powers. But like the Bloodroot, isolation has two sides: it can be both healing and poisonous to Amy Greene’s focus on its inhabitants.
The goal of this paper is to bring awareness to the prevalence of woman abuse in rural Appalachia. Many studies of domestic violence towards women have focused of higher populated urban areas rather than more rural areas. This paper will explore the many underlying factors in the issue of abuse towards women in more rural areas and its relation to Greene’s novel Bloodroot.
Abuse towards women is a severe concern in countless American families. Often these women are placed in situations where their calls for help are ignored. According to Recovering from Private Wars: Rural Appalachian Women Talk about Their Experiences Dealing With Domestic Violence and the Economy’s Role in Their Situations by Stacy Willis of the University of North Carolina:
A woman is battered every 15 seconds in this country. Four women are killed every 15 seconds in this country and at least 25% of domestic violence victims are pregnant when beaten. These atrocities take on numerous guises. The constant presence of terror and intimidation, verbal degradation, threats, slapping, punching, kicking, and ultimately killing constitute some of the forms of domestic violence. These conditions and actions are all components of abusers’ attempts to control every aspect of their victims’ lives. The West Virginia Department of Public Safety reports that in the state, a domestic homicide occurs every ten days. Further, service providers indicate a surge in abuse incidents following announcements of layoffs from major industries like coal mining (1-2).
There are many factors that lead to the increased amounts of abuse: seclusion, health, lower-incomes, unemployment rates, culture, and traditions. According to Willis, “When the person responsible for frustration is not available as a target anger might be displaced onto an innocent bystander, or scapegoat” (2). Greene’s character Myra Odom endures the horrors of spousal abuse in this novel. Her life begins within the picturesque Appalachian Mountains. After swallowing the chicken heart to secure her relationship with John Odom, a dark future lies ahead. Towards the end of the novel we are told her story from her own perspective as if written into a diary. After she is married and taken from her grandmother’s house she becomes a victim of domestic violence stemming from her husband’s alcoholism and childhood trauma. John Odom’s mother was also a victim of domestic violence. When Myra asks John of his other’s death he responds that it “wasn’t no heart attack.” John then goes on to tell Myra that his mother’s death is “about the only thing he’s (his father) is proud of me over” (Greene 270). After this talk Myra reveals that John was never the same. “The next morning he sat up in tangled sheets with eyes dead as coal” (270). The awakening of the memories from his mother’s death caused emotional distress to John. His father’s mistreatment of his mother had a strong impact on his treatment towards Myra. John’s treatment of Myra also stems from the pressure and stress of operating his family’s hardware store. John admits to Myra:
People think because I’m Frankie Odom’s boy I’m rich, but they don’t know how he is. He works us like mules for next to nothing, when he’s gone, I mean to have my piece of that place. You know, one time this woman came in with her husband and said, ‘Odom’s Hardware is a landmark. Buildings like this are the heart of our town.’ I wanted to say, ‘Why don’t you choke on dust and sell nails and put up with hick like you all day, then you’d think heart of our town (271).
John starts to get agitated when people praise the hardware store. His discontent with the store and his salary start to build up his annoyance. He wants to leave town because he feels he is destined for more than selling nails to “hicks”. He begins to use Myra as a scapegoat for his occupational unhappiness. Instead of taking his frustration out on his father, he uses Myra as a tool to take out his anger. Isolated areas often have high unemployment rates. Work stress is directly correlated to anger and abuse.
Studies have shown that in our declining economy domestic violence reports have sharply risen. According to Poor Economy Tied to Rise in Domestic Violence by the Huffington Post:
More than half of the 700 law enforcement agencies polled for the survey reported seeing a rise in "domestic conflicts" related to the economy during 2011, according to USA Today. That's a sharp increase from the numbers reported in a similar 2010 survey, when 40 percent of agencies reported seeing an increase in such cases.
Scott Thompson, the Chief of Police in Camden, N.J., spoke to the paper about the survey results and said that his city saw a 20 percent increase in domestic incidents and a 10 percent increase in domestic-related aggravated assaults from 2010 to 2011. Thompson noted that the unemployment rate in the city is currently 19 percent. When John starts to drink Myra begins to feel neglected. Myra notes, “But the changes were hard to ignore, like the beer and whiskey he started drinking. It altered his breath, his speech, even how he kissed me. When he was drunk he slept so hard it was like he had gone away. I felt alone in the house with the scuttling mice” (274). The abuse increases as John becomes jealous of Myra’s relationship with Byrdie. “His eyes grew so black and mean that I thought he would hit me” (275). Rural areas have escalated reports of alcohol and drug abuse. These factors can intensify accounts of domestic battery among families. The stress and boredom of living in an isolated area can drive individuals to pick up these bad habits and addictions. Willis writes:
In 21 of the studied petitions, alcohol and/or drug abuse is detailed. At around one-seventh of the cases recorded, alcohol and drugs may not sound like too large of a problem. However, since more than 139 files were available, it was observed that alcohol and drugs play a major role in abuse situations. Since (people) already batter when sober, the harm done when under the influence is multiplied (7).
Later on in the reading when John stomps on Myra’s pet rabbit there is a loss of hope. The rabbit was something that provided Myra with comfort. She had a touch with animals and caring for the rabbit was something she cold hide from John. It was a piece of something wild Myra could keep. The abuse heightens to physical when Myra seeks to find out about her parents at the pool hall. When John finds out he proceeds to beat her with his belt in the hardware store. This act is supposed to keep Myra from disobeying him again (302). When Myra attempts to escape to Bloodroot Mountain, John shoves her under the house and leaves her there overnight. She begins to expect abusive treatment from John. At first she retaliates his violence but she eventually accepts the abuse. Like most victims of domestic violence, she becomes quiet and lets the abuser take control.
I stopped trying to run away, but he wasn’t satisfied. My complacence angered him somehow. He began to punish me for walking in front of the television or coughing too loud and spilling sugar on the counter. He threw empty beer bottles at the wall near my head, pressed cigarettes into my flesh, bent my fingers back, and squeezed my wrists in the vise grip of his hands until I couldn’t feel them anymore. At first I fought back, leaving claw marks on his face and spit dripping from his nose. But as time went on, a stillness stole into me (308).
Later in the novel, John proceeds to rape Myra. She then seeks her revenge by chopping off his finger and escaping to the mountain to raise her children in safety.
Isolation from her grandmother put her in danger of abuse. When Myra returned to the safety of her cabin she gained her support system. Even though she is surrounded by the safety of the mountain, she still experiences instability. As she raises her children, she still feels the danger of her actions. She feels paranoid that John and his family will find her on the mountain and harm her again. She is afraid that her children will be taken away from her. Another factor in isolated domestic abuse is the legal system. Many woman report poor action taken by the court system. Isolated communities are essentially 2,500 people or less to be considered “rural.” These communities tend to be “tight-knit.” When a women calls for help the officers will sometimes generate a weaker charge towards the perpetrator for being their friend. Willis writes that one officer was “called to one woman’s home and she remembered that her husband had driven off with the family car right after the call. When the policeman arrived, instead of going after her abuser, the officer asked is she would mind if he filled up the gas tank first” (19). According to Willis, one woman insisted that legal aid is a joke (19). Myra does not report John’s criminal violence to the authorities. Her reason to keep quiet could be a result of John’s occupational status in town. John’s partial ownership of the hardware store is what supports her. Perhaps she does not want John to lose his reputation or job success. Bloodroot has exposed the dark side of domestic violence and how it relates to the isolation of individuals of the Appalachian Mountain region. The violence stems from seclusion, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, lower-incomes, unemployment rates, culture, and traditions. Myra’s ongoing abuse is the direct result from her isolation in the Appalachian region.