Summary Of Woman Among Lightning: Catawba County Fair By Ron Rash

In the title Woman Among Lightning: Catawba County Fair, 1962 it provides the audience with a setting of a large rural looking fair. With the date included in the title, it shows that the time period is different than the current one the reader is in. After reading the poem the reader know that the woman spoken about in the title is one who is fleeing the life she is stuck in for a new and free future. Ron Rash’s tone in his poem portrays the dark feelings the woman has in the beging with words like dredging, darkness, and thundering as well as a phase like life leaks away like blood. The woman has this feeling of being trapped or stuck in the life she was given and longs to be free. Later in the poem, as she is escaping from the life she

Rash is comparing the lightning spreading out in neon tendrils to the vines of the kudzu plant. Continuing on, the storm progressing darkness over the middle of the great wheel is a perfect visual for setting up the unhappy feelings felt later on in the poem. In the seventh and eighth lines, it shows the ferocity the storm obtains as it whips the tent flaps. Then, Rash includes the personification of the clouds with thundering their heavy freight/ toward the fairground. The riders begin to pack up and leave, but the woman refuses which displays her character for being strong as well as fearless. In the next set of lines, she rides into the storm, which can be seen as her trying to grasp at the control she lacks in her life. Another setup for control is the next two lines, where she throws up her hand as if to make a wreath of lightning around her head. Rash, gives more context into her past as she is explained to be a farmwife stuck in a life measured only by the work she does each day, and her swinging hoe is what keeps the pace. The nineteenth and twentieth line make a good connection between the blood on land always wanting more and the invasive nature of the kudzu plant. The next line is all about her need to be more and that she truly is free. Next, it is a comparison made that she is now like the hawk free and embracing the upswing in life. In lines twentyfour through twentysix it is her last look back on the life she is now leaving and he metaphorical last look between the ascent and return. And in the Last two lines, her money can be compared to the wings she is flying on to