Charlie Frazier Character Analysis

The brisk morning nipped at my face, and I buried my chin deeper into Pa’s oilskin coat and nudged the mule ahead to the home of our first library patron. We crossed over into the fog-soaked creek before sunrise, the dark waters biting at the beast’s ankles, a willingness to hurry pricking Junia’s long ears forward. Late April winds tangled into the sharp, leafy teeth of sourwoods, teasing, combing her short gray mane. Beyond the creek, hills unfolded, and tender green buds of heart-shaped beetleweed and running ivy pushed up from rotted forest graves and ancient knobby roots, climbed through the cider-brown patches of winter leaves, spilling forth from fertile earth.

Weren’t no such spirit, just a man sly-eyeing me. He didn’t fool me none with his pasty-white face. Darkly he was, filled to the brim with the blackness inside…

It was preacher man Vester Frazier, my dead husband’s cousin … He’d been coming for me a good while, and more boldly since I’d been left widowed.

He’d done the same to others like me: Michael McKinney, the three-nippled midget who rode his goat cart bare-chested across the hills, a boy with pink eyes and hair the color of a white lamb, the seven-year-old Melungeon girl who had fit that tonic and herbs couldn’t quiet…And there were the godless, those who’d never found a church, and a few ungodly others Vester Frazier and his followers thought the devil had given those peculiarities to. The odd markings with no names.

Pa believed the mattress advertisement that promised to soothe hurt bones and give better rest would help me heal faster. Pa had credit to spend at the Company store that he used for the purchase, saying he’d had a little extra that month.

But Pa didn’t have as much as two nickels to rub together […] The Company didn’t like for the Kentucky man to feel a dollar in his pocket, and they’d pay the miners mostly in Company scrip—credit that could be used only at the Company store—to make sure of just that. The Company […] [kept] the families good ’n’ indebted to them, insisting to any that might raise a brow, it serves to smarten the miners, give the coal man a vicissitude from improper business standards, and educates them on sound business practices, on acquiring sound credit.

I had also seen the feminine hygiene advertisements in magazines and newspapers. The pictures of the weeping lady with a dainty hankie to her eyes showed she’d been a good mother, good housekeeper, good hostess, good cook, all those things, until 6:00pm.

The feminine wash advertisement scolded the sad lady, insisted the perfect homemaker did one disgraceful thing her husband couldn’t forgive by forgetting her smelly lady parts. It warned womenfolk about the dangers of neglecting intimate personal hygiene and reminded them to use the feminine wash to keep from wrecking a marriage. A powerful germicide, the product promised, and one that removes all kind of powerful things and even stranger things I’d never heard of like “organic matter” […] It will keep your man happy and is a surety for a happy marriage.

The brisk morning nipped at my face, and I buried my chin deeper into Pa’s oilskin coat and nudged the mule ahead to the home of our first library patron. We crossed over into the fog-soaked creek before sunrise, the dark waters biting at the beast’s ankles, a willingness to hurry pricking Junia’s long ears forward. Late April winds tangled into the sharp, leafy teeth of sourwoods, teasing, combing her short gray mane. Beyond the creek, hills unfolded, and tender green buds of heart-shaped beetleweed and running ivy pushed up from rotted forest graves and ancient knobby roots, climbed through the cider-brown patches of winter leaves, spilling forth from fertile earth.

Weren’t no such spirit, just a man sly-eyeing me. He didn’t fool me none with his pasty-white face. Darkly he was, filled to the brim with the blackness inside…

It was preacher man Vester Frazier, my dead husband’s cousin … He’d been coming for me a good while, and more boldly since I’d been left widowed.

He’d done the same to others like me: Michael McKinney, the three-nippled midget who rode his goat cart bare-chested across the hills, a boy with pink eyes and hair the color of a white lamb, the seven-year-old Melungeon girl who had fit that tonic and herbs couldn’t quiet…And there were the godless, those who’d never found a church, and a few ungodly others Vester Frazier and his followers thought the devil had given those peculiarities to. The odd markings with no names.

Pa believed the mattress advertisement that promised to soothe hurt bones and give better rest would help me heal faster. Pa had credit to spend at the Company store that he used for the purchase, saying he’d had a little extra that month.

But Pa didn’t have as much as two nickels to rub together […] The Company didn’t like for the Kentucky man to feel a dollar in his pocket, and they’d pay the miners mostly in Company scrip—credit that could be used only at the Company store—to make sure of just that. The Company […] [kept] the families good ’n’ indebted to them, insisting to any that might raise a brow, it serves to smarten the miners, give the coal man a vicissitude from improper business standards, and educates them on sound business practices, on acquiring sound credit.

I had also seen the feminine hygiene advertisements in magazines and newspapers. The pictures of the weeping lady with a dainty hankie to her eyes showed she’d been a good mother, good housekeeper, good hostess, good cook, all those things, until 6:00pm.

The feminine wash advertisement scolded the sad lady, insisted the perfect homemaker did one disgraceful thing her husband couldn’t forgive by forgetting her smelly lady parts. It warned womenfolk about the dangers of neglecting intimate personal hygiene and reminded them to use the feminine wash to keep from wrecking a marriage. A powerful germicide, the product promised, and one that removes all kind of powerful things and even stranger things I’d never heard of like “organic matter” […] It will keep your man happy and is a surety for a happy marriage.