Appalachian Animals on Our Mind: A Survey of Human-Animal Relationships in Appalachian Literature

Humans have lived with nonhuman animals in the Appalachian Mountains for thousands of years. The relationships formed between these two groups of life have changed over the course of that time, but remained complex, nonetheless. This thesis begins to study Appalachian human-animal relationships by dissecting various relationships represented in prominent works of Appalachian literature, such as Harriette Simpson Arnow’s Hunter’s Horn, Wilma Dykeman’s The Tall Woman, and James Still’s River of Earth. This study moves through some of the current trends in the field of Critical animal studies (CAS) and, for the first time, pairs these trends with different concepts scholars have created in the varying disciplines under the umbrella of Appalachian studies. “Appalachian Animals on Our Mind” begins with a brief history of interactions between animals and humans in Appalachia, then moves into an analysis of literature. This thesis uses the literature to further examine differing human-animal relationships through psychological, ecofeminist, and anthropological models.