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Erika Nicholas

ENLG 648

Dr. Burris

10 December 2014

Where are the Women?: The Absence of Female Voice in The Stories of

Breece D’J Pancake

Many cultures have always had a strong desire to dominate

the “Other” and deem the “Others” insignificant. In some

cultures, “Other” is determined by skin color or religious

beliefs, but in Appalachian culture the woman is one of these

“Others.” In Pancake’s Appalachian culture, “dominant males try

to shore up their tenuous grasp on masculine authority through

misogyny, domination and sexual objectification of women” (Wilson

5). Moreover, the typical male protagonists of Pancake’s stories

are “rural, blue-collar men with typically masculine trades and

pastimes—farmers, mechanics, hunters, scrappers and drinkers—

struggling to scratch out meager livings, often on failing farms”

(Wilson 2), and in order to assert their manliness, they must

exert what Wilson calls “hypermasculinity.” The male characters

in these stories exert this hypermasculinity through treating

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women as marginal figures in their lives. Throughout several of

the stories in The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake, this masculine

authority becomes evident. I will discuss the stories

“Trilobites,” “Hollow,” “Fox Hunters,” and “A Room Forever” to

demonstrate that the lack of voice given to women, the reduction

of women to sexual objects, or whores, and the treatment and

description of women in animalistic terms all emphasize their

objectification and further convey the idea that this is a male-

dominated, patriarchal world and the female is insignificant.

Feminism is based on the idea that Western culture is

inherently patriarchal, which marginalizes women. Most

literature, especially that of the canon, is written from a male

perspective and rarely are women portrayed through their own

eyes, or with their own voice. This patriarchal structure that

Western culture is based upon has “operated on the assumption

that women were inferior creatures” (Dobie 103). This assumption

is transferred to literature because of the dominance of the male

perspective and the dominance of male writers in the canon.

Therefore, feminist literary criticism, it is important to note,

is not about women as people, but how women are constructed or

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used within a literary context. One way that this can take place

is using literature to shake the foundation of patriarchal

systems of meaning and exchange. To further shake the foundation,

feminist criticism also aims to break down the binaries between

male/female in order to show that one is no more privileged than

the other. Feminist literary criticism can take many forms, but

specifically, for the purposes of this paper, feminist criticism

takes the form of analyzing the implications of the silencing of

women, enforcing the patriarchal structure, marginalizing women,

and maintaining the male/female binary. Besides focusing on the

general aspects of feminist literary theory, and since most

cultures have a different view on feminism, I will use feminist

theory to focus on particular stereotypes of Appalachian women

and the portrayal of them in Pancake’s Appalachian short stories

and how this representation reinforces the patriarchal structure.

Throughout these stories, there is a significant lack of

voice given to women. The women who do not have a voice,

consequently, do not have the ability to distance themselves from

the patriarchal structure because they are unable to use their

voice to counter the image that is projected upon them. In other

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words, we cannot get an accurate depiction of these women and

their role in these stories because they are told by men, and no

one besides the woman can accurately tell her story. In the story

“Trilobites,” several women are mentioned, but none of them are

given an actual, female voice. Even though the women do speak in

this story, they are not truly speaking through their own voice

because the narration style is first person, and the narrator is

male. Because the voice is consistently male throughout these

stories, the reader cannot get an accurate description of what

the female characters have said, or would have said in their own

voice. These “women [are] playing an important role in men’s

lives, but their story, told in their voice is “conspicuously

absent” (Bennett 18). Specifically, with Ginny, we are only given

her description through the eyes and perspective of Colly.

Colly’s view of her is already negative because in his eyes she

has left him behind. Since Ginny has gone away to college, she is

deemed “poorly adjusted” because she is an educated woman and “in

addition to being “poorly adjusted,” intellectuals are assumed to

be unhappy” (Bennett 116). Colly automatically assumes that she

is not happy because she is away from home, but in reality she is

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probably more happy than he is; this projection of his feelings

onto her creates a shield around him and avoids the unnecessary

feeling that she is better than him, or at least equal to him.

Being better than or equal to him is unacceptable, so he does

whatever he can to knock her down a few pegs, even if that means

to demoralize her sexually, or make her feel shame for leaving

him and going away to college. We never get her side of the

story, or how she really feels. Since this perspective is

nonexistent in this story, the dominance of the male is already

asserted from the beginning and “one might ask how these stories

can be their own—and be accurate—if they are told by someone

else, and especially by a male” (Bennett 18). Furthermore, the

waitress at the diner is never given a name; Colly only refers to

her as “Tinker Reilly’s sister” (Pancake 21). She never talks,

either; she only serves the men coffee. By not giving her a name

and only referring to her in reference to a male she is

marginalized and deemed useless for anything else, but serving

men. While these two female characters are not given any

authority, Colly’s mother, seemingly, has authority and a voice;

however, this is deceiving. Even though Colly’s mother is the

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authority figure on selling the land, the reader still only hears

her voice through Colly and her authority is only related through

Colly’s perspective.

The use of a woman’s voice from a male’s perspective is also

present in the story “A Room Forever.” The only female character

in this story is a teenage prostitute, or “chippy.” Arguably, the

drag queen is also a female, but since she only occurs once in

the story, there isn’t enough information to discuss her

marginalization. However, the teenage prostitute, precisely in

the same manner as the female characters in “Trilobites,” is only

seen and heard through a male perspective. This young woman is

not given a chance to explain her situation, nor is she given the

opportunity to speak for herself. With no real voice, she is

limited to being whatever the narrator wishes her to be and in

this case that is a whore who does not deserve the help he

offers. She does not deserve his help because he offers it, and

she refuses, but we, again, only get to hear what he wants us to

hear. Since she is not speaking through her own voice, she does

not get a chance to tell how she really feels, or what she

thinks. The narrator is able to use his voice to create the image

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of this young girl in any way he pleases, which makes her

insignificant because only the male opinion is what matters here.

This marginalization of her thoughts emphasizes Wilson’s “hetero-

masculinity [which] endows superiority” (4). Since the male

perspective is the only one present, women are both marginalized

and deemed useless without the presence of a male.

The lack of female voice isn’t the only issue that

marginalizes and objectifies women; throughout the stories in

this collection, women are reduced to mere sex objects, or

treated as whores. According to Wilson, “nearly all of Pancake’s

male and some of his female characters prudishly judge unchaste

females and promote the virgin-whore dichotomy; although,

“virgins” remain conspicuously absent while whores assume nearly

all female roles” (2). The first instance of sexual

objectification of female characters occurs in “Trilobites,” and

it occurs relatively early on in the story. Tinker’s sister is

described with “good hips…[that] slope in nice curves to her

legs. Hips and legs like that climb steps into airplanes”

(Pancake 21). This same description occurs two more times within

the next two pages. Colly validates her through his sexual

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attraction to her body; she would not be important to him if she

were unattractive. This act of watching her and her hips is

almost voyeurism, and this voyeurism is reducing this female to

an object to be used sexually; even if it is only fantastical.

This is even further progressed when Jim teases Colly about

wanting to have sex with her, but the only thing stopping Colly

from pursuing her sexually is the fact that she is “jailbait”

(Pancake 22). That, however, does not stop him from fantasizing

about her sexually while he is having sex with Ginny. Colly,

while using Ginny for sex, “thinks of Tinker’s sister. Ginny

isn’t here. Tinker’s sister is under me” (Pancake 35). This

brings up two points; the narrator is using Ginny for his own

sexual desire, but he is also fantasizing about Tinker’s sister

while with Ginny. Since he cannot have sex with Tinker’s sister,

he fantasizes about her in order to assert his male dominance.

This sexual desire for Ginny is the sole focus of Colly’s

interest in her. At one point he says, “I wanted to talk, but the

picture won’t come to words” (Pancake 34), which indicates that

he valued Ginny and her conversation at one point, but now all

she is useful for is sex. This objectification and

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marginalization of these women reinforces the virgin/whore

dichotomy by relating an untouchable woman and an educated woman

with the right side of the binary and creating her as something

instead of someone.

Following the same idea is the story “Hollow,” in which

Sally is a whore; at least to the males she is, but she doesn’t

exactly do anything to change this opinion of her. The first

mention of Sally is the Buddy saying she is “worthless” (Pancake

40) and then Fuller asks the question “is Sal goin’ back to

whorin’?” (Pancake 41), so, immediately, she is both worthless

and a whore. Since she is unchaste, because she is in a sexual

relationship, out of wedlock, with Buddy, she is automatically a

whore. Buddy, who supposedly loves her, even alludes to her being

a whore, or a prostitute because he says, “Ya can’t make any

money at it, Sal. Too much free stuff floatin’ around” (Pancake

46). Reading between the lines, one can see that he is alluding

to her not being able to make money with sex because there are

too many women who are giving it away for free. There is no

redeeming her after that, even if the narration is third person.

Because of the seemingly omniscient narrator, Sally has the

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ability to redeem herself as a worthless whore, but as the story

progresses she does not do or say anything that is redeeming; in

fact, she runs off with Fuller. All of this reduces Sally to an

object that is only useful for sex; even so much so that when

Buddy has sex with her for the last time, he doesn’t acknowledge

her at all, but merely says, “Yeah. See ya” (Pancake 47), even

though he knows that is the last time he will see her. She means

nothing to him once he has had his way with her. He tosses her

away like a used rag and has no regrets about it, but instead

decides that he needs to get back at her by doing everything he

told her he was going to do. He does not need her, but she needs

a man, and if she is in a relationship with a man outside of

wedlock she is a whore. These ideas create an image of a woman

who is worthless without a man.

Furthermore, “A Room Forever” uses the female as whore or

sex object most obviously because the only female character is a

teenage prostitute. It may seem rather obvious to equate this

with the virgin/whore dichotomy that Wilson presents, but it is

important to make note of how this story so effectively creates

that binary opposition in such an obvious situation. While it

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seems, at first, that the narrator tries to treat the “chippy” as

a person and help her get out of prostitution, he still treats

her as if her worth is measured through the assistance of a man.

He acts as if the only way she can get out of prostitution is if

he comes and rescues the poor damsel in distress; the man has to

be the knight in shining armor who must slay the evil dragon of

prostitution. Even though the narrator is hidden behind this

façade of rescue, he still “buys her” (Pancake 56) which reduces

the girl to an object that can be bought and used; and he buys

and uses her for his own needs. The narrator even states, they

“never left the business end” (Pancake 57) and she is just a

whore who is a “waste of time and money” (Pancake 58). In other

words, she is not worth his money because she is just a whore he

can use and dispose of at his leisure. Although it is easy to

treat a prostitute as a whore, that does not mean that she is a

whore because she is a prostitute. Pancake creates her as a whore

because she is a woman who is unchaste and does not follow the

appropriate rules of sexual desire that a woman should follow—she

has sex before marriage and thus maintains the virgin/whore

binary opposition.

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While these women are treated as whores and objects for a

man’s sexual desire, there are women in these stories who use

their negative reputation for their own advantage. Lucy, in “Fox

Hunters,” has recreated her identity away from that of

patriarchal society, which causes her to be labeled a “whore.”

Unlike the other women in Pancake’s stories, Lucy uses her label

to her advantage because she owns a boarding house for men

working in the mines. She already has a reputation as a whore, so

when she cleans the tables and the grill she makes sure that she

is “showing slip and garters… still, acting vaguely embarrassed”

(Pancake 62). It is this breaking away from the norm that causes

her to be labeled because she is smarter than the men in the

town; even Bo calls her a whore when she shows that she is

smarter than he is. Even though she only has a voice in a small

part of this story, she uses her sense of humor by jokingly

suggesting that she is a whore because that is what everyone

thinks of her anyway. According to Bennett, “such satire

underscores the absurdity of a social structure that refuses to

distinguish between the ideal and the real” (112) This is her way

of breaking away from patriarchy and creating her own identity

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because she is able to use humor to reclaim the image that is

projected onto her. This reclaim of the title “whore” that she is

given is “an attempt to redefine [herself] in terms separate from

those of patriarchal society” (Bennett 29). She takes a term that

should be demeaning and negative and turns it into positive; she

takes the right side of the virgin/whore binary, which is

automatically seen as negative, and flips it to the left side of

that binary and creates a positive connotation because she breaks

from the patriarchal structure.

Lucy is not the only woman in “Fox Hunters” who is thought

of only as a body, but the dead friends Dawn and Anne are

remembered in such a way, as well. When Bo learns about their

surprising death, he immediately remembers “Dawn was chesty and

popular…Anne…always wore white blouses so onlookers could tell

she had a bra, and therefore something to hold up” (Pancake 71).

These women are living “in a culture that objectifies them, [and]

Appalachian women not only experience pressure to maintain a

“perfect” body but are also indicted for their inability to

condition their bodies accordingly” (Massey 128). While it is

difficult to dig too deep into whether this is a depiction of all

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Appalachian culture or if this is just a small representation of

one area of Appalachia, those same ideas are still relevant.

Those ideas emphasize their uses as objects because they are only

described in physical terms and there is no indication of their

personalities, or their abilities—they are merely physical beings

with no personality traits. According to Wilson, “Pancake usually

renders girls and women as unfaithful, promiscuous, incestuous,

meretricious, and consequently, demeaned and defiled” (5)

Throughout these stories, the reduction of women to mere sex

objects, or whores emphasizes the virgin/whore binary, the

patriarchal structure, and the dominance of the male within that

structure because their inferiority is brought to the forefront.

The last aspect of marginalizing women in this collection is

the reference to women in animalistic terms and the treatment of

them as animals instead of people. In order to show that these

women need to be domesticated and are inferior to men, the men in

the stories refer to them, or treat them as animals. In “Hollow,”

Ginny is described at least three times as “talking through her

beak,” which creates the image of a bird. These two images may

not seem as demeaning toward women, but if those images are

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broken down it becomes apparent. First, a bird is something that

is small and fragile, so turning the image of a woman into the

image of a bird creates the idea that she is small and weak.

Taking it a step further, another word for bird is chick, which

is a slang word many men use in reference to women. A chick is

generally a baby bird that is dependent upon another bird—not

always the mother bird—for support and survival, which then

implies that a woman needs someone else for support or survival;

usually a man. This reference to a child-like animal hinders the

growth of a woman because growth indicates superiority and

change, which women should not have or do. Since birds to not

have hands nor opposable thumbs, they must use their beaks to

manipulate things for which humans would usually use their hands.

Since Ginny talks through her beak, she has the power of

manipulation, which should only be limited to men. The idea of

manipulation may seem a bit far fetched, but since Ginny is

educated, she has the ability to manipulate people with her

words, through her beak. Even though this is not very prominent,

it still refers to a woman in an animalistic term. By doing this,

the narrator has knocked her down a few pegs and has raised

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himself higher in the patriarchal structure. Moreover, the story

“Fox Hunters,” even from its revealing title, warrants itself to

treating women as animals. The scene in which the narrator

actually goes fox hunting indicates the value of women in this

society. The men speak of the dead girls, Dawn and Anne, as if

their deaths have saved their reputations. This can relate to the

misogyny of the man’s fear of women because “of a woman’s ability

to shame him before other men” (Bennett 114). This is precisely

what the men are afraid of and why they are glad these girls are

dead. One of the men even suggests digging them up because “maybe

she’s still warm” (Pancake 80). They suggest digging up two

teenage girls that have tragically died to have one last sexual

escapade and to deface their bodies. Their value was only their

sexual abilities and not their personalities or intelligence.

While this doesn’t seem like it reduces these girls to animals,

or there is a reference to them in animalistic terms, these men

are, in fact, treating them as animals by letting their

animalistic desire control their attitude toward these girls.

While that is minor, the title itself implies the focus of the

hunt on foxes. Fox is a word men use to describe women who are

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sexually attractive. The title could suggest that the men in this

story are hunting foxes, or women who are sexually attractive, to

use as they please in the same manner they used Dawn and Anne.

With regards to women as animals or the treatment of women

as animals, the story “Hollow” has a pretty graphic scene that

indicates Buddy’s feeling toward women. After Sally leaves, and

he goes hunting, Buddy kills a deer. While Buddy is preparing to

dress the deer, he notices “something inside the carcass jolt”

(Pancake 52). This jolt turns out to be an unborn fawn. When the

“squirming lump fell at his feet…he kicked the unborn fawn aside”

(Pancake 52). Not only does he disrespect the doe by killing it

while it is carrying a fawn, but he kicks the fawn aside as if it

is insignificant. This treatment is directly related to his

treatment of Sally. He treats her as disrespectfully as he treats

the female deer and her unborn fawn. He uses Sally for what he

wants, sex, and tosses her aside “for the scavengers to find”

(Pancake 52). Ironically, Buddy treats his dog better than he

treats Sally and the deer. When he realizes that she has mated

with another dog (which is something he has tried to prevent),

his response is “poor ol’ girl” (Pancake 51), but when Sally

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wants to leave because she is unhappy, she is a whore. The

hierarchy of importance in Buddy’s life is himself, the dog,

convincing his cousin to begin strip mining, drinking, and then

Sally. The treatment of his dog better than a woman he supposedly

loves indicates her insignificance in his world. The significant

lack of respect for women in these stories and treating them as

animals or referring to them in animalistic terms emphasizes

their insignificance in the male world and their inferiority to

men. Animals are lower on the food chain than men and

domesticated animals are dependent on man for support and these

animalistic depictions of women makes them dependent on men and

thus inferior.

In this collection, it would seem characters like Colly’s

mother in “Trilobites” would indicate that women have authority,

but we have to remember that we are only seeing her authority and

voice through the male perspective. Since she is not seen through

her own eyes, or through the eyes of an omniscient narrator, we

can only get as much information as Colly wants us to get. This

treatment of his mother is a “localized version of masculine

hegemony [that] strategically engages the ”exchange of the

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feminine” to dominate, intimidate and violate “others”: females,

the young and the elderly, and any man suspected of “deviance”

from their hypermasculine protocol” (Wilson 2). This is also

further asserted by her fear of being around single men alone, as

if they would demoralize her in some way because she does not

have a male relative around to protect her. Also, in the same

story, the relationship between Ginny and Colly seems to break or

bend that binary that is so strong within the rest of the stories

because Ginny is a woman who knows what she wants and how to get

it. Colly even takes the time to state that, “She isn’t making

love, she’s getting laid” (Pancake 35), which masculinizes Ginny,

but Colly is also just getting laid and he is also just using

Ginny for what he can while he can, so that line between the

binary begins to wobble, but doesn’t break because Colly’s

narrative voice maintains that distinction. And of course, there

is always the relationship between Sally and Buddy. Sally

reinforces the male/female binary by having dinner ready when

Buddy gets home from work like a good little Susie Homemaker

because the men and women in Pancake’s stories “live in

segregated worlds kept apart by notions of sexuality and

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propriety and by narrow definitions of what men and women are

expected to do” (Wilson 2). Buddy makes sure to ridicule her meal

because “there is no reason he should have to clean up, no reason

he could not have meat, or anything else he wanted” (Pancake 50)

simply because he is a man and she is the woman. While there are

relationships and characters that could break down this binary,

they are disregarded because the prevalent reinforcement, similar

to Sally and Buddy, of the strict rules of the patriarchal

structure and the dominance of the male.

In The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake, we can get an idea of what life

is like in some areas of Appalachia. While these are fictional

stories about a real place, the stereotypes, objectification and

misogynistic culture are emphasized. The ambiguous nature of

these stories leaves the reader wondering whether this depiction

of Pancake’s Appalachia is generalizable to the entire

Appalachian culture; however, it cannot be determined if Pancake

was perpetuating these stereotypes intentionally without digging

into and attempting to determine authorial intent, but it can be

safely assumed that these stereotypes drive the characters in his

stories. Women are treated as though they are things to be used,

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or animals to be domesticated and controlled. This treatment of

women emphasizes their lack of worth and inferiority. By reducing

these women to insignificant figures, the men have elevated their

manliness. If these stories are read between the lines, one can

see that these women have more to offer than the way they are

treated and described in these stories, but as they are on the

surface, which is how the men see them, they are insignificant in

a male-dominated patriarchal world.

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Works Cited

Bennett, Barbara. “De Maiden Language”: Voice and Identity. Comic

Visions. Female Voices. LSU Press, 1998. 16-36. Print.

Bennett, Barbara. The Hand Inside the Velvet Glove: Confronting

Stereotypes. Comic Visions. Female Voices. LSU Press, 1998. 16-36.

Print.

Dobie, Ann B. Theory into Practice An Introduction to Literary Criticism. 3rd ed.

Boston: Wadsworth. 2012. Print.

Massey, Clarissa. “Appalachian Stereotypes: Cultural History,

Gender, and Sexual Rhetoric.” Journal of Appalachian Studies 13.1&2

(2007):124-136. Print.

Pancake, Breece D’J. The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake. New York: Back

Bay. 2002. Print.

Wilson, David E. (American educator). "Masculine (dis)order:

malignant discrimination in the stories of Breece D'J

Pancake." Appalachian Heritage 40.3 (2012): 57+. Literature

Resource Center. Web. 10 Nov. 2014.