In his Kirkman tetralogy, Fred Chappell refutes ill-conceived Appalachian stereotypes via his refreshingly intelligent and sophisticated cast of mountaineer players. However, Chappell’s characters do not exist without flaws. Jess Kirkman, the tetralogy’s narrator, is a particularly tortured figure. Perpetually struggling to assimilate into his native mountain culture, Jess represents the Appalachian Other, an individual who is born into Southern Highland society, but who is, ironically, treated like an outsider by his peers. Throughout Chappell’s first novel, Jess’s inability to connect with his own family members becomes evident. In books two and three, readers see that, although several of Jess’s male relatives share his assimilative struggles, the women in his family are warmly embraced members of Appalachian society. While Jess desperately attempts to win the approval of his peers in novel four, he ultimately accepts his otherness, thus embracing the permanency of his outsider status.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Harding Graduate School of Religion, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-185).

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The college commencement address is traditionally regarded as the low point of an otherwise auspicious occasion. An ephemeral form of ceremonial oratory, the commencement speech is reviled for its conventional platitudes, its easy piety, and its abstractions on the well-lived life, the sunny future, and the ethics of adulthood. The South may differ, however, in its approach to the commencement speech genre, especially in the years between World War II and the millennium, when one of the South’s most significant assets became the southern writer. Throughout this dissertation, I have tried to situate eight commencement addresses given by such prominent and dissimilar writers as W.J. Cash, William Faulkner, Wendell Berry, Will D. Campbell, Lee Smith, Clyde Edgerton, Maya Angelou, and Fred Chappell, within the context of the times in which they were delivered and within the speakers' written works. Through my analysis of these graduation talks, I discovered that southern writers typically abandon those repetitious conventions that render the commencement address forgettable in favor of the innovative techniques that were already at work in their written works.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2006. / Thomas L. McHaney, Pearl A. McHaney, committee co-chairs; Matthew Roudane, committee member. Electronic text (170 p.) : digital, PDF file. Title from title screen. Description based on contents viewed July 3, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 158-169).

In Fred Chappell’s Kirkman tetralogy, narrator Jess Kirkman synthesizes a multiplicity of perspectives for understanding the nature of truth. Blurring the distinction between art and life, Jess's narrative structure mirrors the imaginative reconstruction of experience; the novels are largely non-chronological emotive interactions with and reflections of his most salient memories and imaginings. Synthesizing an impressive cacophony of voices, Jess's stories both describe and apply the wisdom and tales Jess acquires from and with his family members. Each story informs the prior and the next, and the rhizomatic interaction between language, narrative, and reader explores Jess's numerous identities and understandings as narratives venture through space, time, and imagination.