The main issues with the Kentucky Cycle are quoted pretty explicitly by Kentucky academic Gurney Norman in Billings’ introduction to Back Talk. Norman faulted Schenkkan for “tromping on real people and the real facts of their history…run[ning] roughshod over a whole culture” as well as creating a “vision [that] is inaccurate and unjust–it blames the victim” (Billings, 9). Arguing from this perspective, I definitely agree with his point. Throughout this play’s nine acts, every bad thing that happens to the three families can be traced to a specific moment where greed won over morality in a specific character’s life. We can look at the story of Joshua Rowen and his son Scotty as a perfect example. Scotty died in a mine explosion related to the amount of dust that was in the air. Why was there so much dust in the air? Because Joshua didn’t fight hard enough for clean mines when he made his deal with the coal mining company, worried more about job security for himself then job safety for his community. Instances like this exist throughout this six hour play and clearly represent exactly how Schenkkan viewed the Appalachian people during his one day trip.

Here is the impossibility of agreeing or disagreeing with such an argument: who am I to decide? The only people who have to the right to dispute this argument are the resident of Appalachia themselves. As the ones on the “inside” they can tell us whether or not the view of these academics is the view of the entire culture, or just the enlightened few. My stance, therefore, is that if the Appalachian people view this play as a poor reflection of their cultural identity, then it must be–despite how much I loved the plot as a sort of epic tragedy.