“Wildness Is The Cure”: A Pastoral Reading Of Robert Gipe’s Canard County Trilogy

Robert Gipe’s Canard County Trilogy, Trampoline (2015), Weedeater (2018), and Pop (2021), features commentary on extractive industries in Appalachia and the environmental and social degradation they have caused and continue to inflict. Analyzing the trilogy through a pastoral lens sheds new light on the connection between pastoral retreats in the novels and the reclamation of land, lives, and resources from said extractive forces. This thesis analyzes how the trilogy comments on the three sub-genres of pastoral literature: traditional pastoral, anti-pastoral, and post-pastoral literature as outlined by ecocritic Terry Gifford. The series favors the post-pastoral, where protagonists listen to and contemplate nature and work towards answering Gifford’s post-pastoral questions. Overall, a pastoral analysis of the Canard County Trilogy shows the pitfalls of traditional and anti-pastoral retreats while underscoring the benefits of post-pastoral practices.