From what I have read about Appalachia, I can tell there are many views regarding the Appalachian people and their culture. Some people find Appalachia to be the home of ignorant, backwards hillbillies, while other view the Appalachian mountain region as a beautiful place and home to a variety of people. That being said, almost everyone with an opinion feels strongly towards one side or the other. Both The Kentucky Cycle and Back Talk From Appalachia support this conclusion. The Kentucky Cycle clearly depicts the idea that everyone in Appalachia is ignorant and prone to making the same mistakes as the generation before them. Back Talk from Appalachia was written in response to The Kentucky Cycle in order to argue in favor or the Appalachian region.

In the introduction to Back Talk from Appalachia, Dwight Billings begins to highlight the many flaws with Robert Schenkkan biased opinion towards the Appalachian region. Billings particularly talks about the unfair description of Appalachia as deeply impoverished. Billings quotes Michael Rowen, a character in The Kentucky Cycle who says, “I dream about Hell. Hell is a place where you keep making the same mistake over and over again and nobody learns nothin’. It looked a whole lot like Eastern Kentucky.” He also mentions that the Schenkkan’s play was written based on his interpretation of the region after spending only one day in Kentucky. Billings’ goal with the introduction was to show there is reason to doubt the accuracy of The Kentucky Cycle, and I think he did it quite well.

I would now like to focus on Patrick Rowen, the son of Michael Rowen in The Kentucky Cycle, Patrick is one of the primary ways Shenkkan supports his theory of Kentuckians making the same mistakes over and over again. In the play, Patrick develops his father’s greed and selfishness as he grows older and eventually takes the life of his father and neighbor to keep them from getting in the way of his personal goals. This is a mistake his father made earlier in his life when decided to steal a girl from a Native American tribe and ultimately infect the entire tribe with small pox in order to prevent them from getting in his way. Without any other sources, I can see how one could believe Robert Schenkkan’s depictions of Appalachia. The characters in the play are designed to make Appalachia look bad and they do so very well.