Rebuilding from the Rubble

‘ . . . you know only

A heap of broken images . . .’

–T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

I.  Destruction

The description of the South as a land that has fallen into desolation is familiar to many.  Sometimes this historical reality is presented to us in unfamiliar ways, however.  For instance, in his short story ‘Jericho, Jericho, Jericho’, originally published in 1936, Andrew Lytle uses the allegory of a dying woman to explain what has happened to the South and why.

 Kate McCowan, the widow of a man known in the story only as the General and the owner of a plantation named Long Gourd, is on her death bed.  She is the personification of the Old South, both slowly making their way to the grave.  But before they get there, they are desperate to impart to the rising generations the good traditions they have inherited from their ancestors.  Ms Kate’s grandson Dick represents the young Southerners, the vessels the Old South is trying to prepare to receive the treasures of the past:

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