Animal Elegy in Ron Rash’s “In the Valley” (2020)

Abstract

This paper argues that Ron Rash’s 2020 return to his 2009 bestseller, Serena, and to its eponymous character’s destructive frenzy operates as a pretext for him to deal, in his own poetic way, with the devastating consequences of such ruthless exploitative behaviors and their lethal contribution to the sixth extinction. This paper shows that “In the Valley” partakes of the genre of the poetry of extinction. Focusing on the diverse ways in which the valley’s inexorable emptying is represented, it regards “In the Valley” as an animal elegy that poetically represents the inexorable extinction of numerous species.