An Analysis Of Saints At The River

Chiderah Onyeukwu
Appling
LIB 100
22 August 2011
Summer Reading Essay Prompt #2 Saints At the River is the fictional account of the death of young Rachel Trois, renamed Ruth Kowalsky in the novel, and the subsequent fight over the recovery of her remains. The differences between the factual account of the events and author Ron Rash’s take, although minute, are detectable. The most obvious difference between the two accounts is that in the novel, the girl’s body is recovered while in the factual account only her remains are found. Rash most likely changed this aspect of the story for dramatic effect, knowing that it would provide an exciting climax for his readers. However, this diminishes the meaningfulness of Rash’s account; therefore, the factual account of Trois’ death holds more significance. In both accounts, the struggle over whether the river should be altered to retrieve the girl’s body is effectively emphasized. Both authors make it a point to highlight the opposing viewpoints in this argument, the “river rats” who think of the river as sacred and unalterable and the girl’s family, who simply aim to retrieve their daughter’s remains. Both portrayals also do a good job of displaying how bitter this dispute was and the depth of each side’s allegiance to their cause. By telling of the town meetings held over how the retrieval of the body should be approached and the scores of press from all over the region who traveled to the river to report on the story, both accounts effectively portray how much the story captivated people and led to each person’s strong opinion of how the situation should be handled. Overall, both accounts retold the story in a similar way, but the differences in Rash’s account from what actually happened moderately affected the plot. Apart from the necessary name changes, some major differences between both portrayals are who narrated each story and the development of a “secondary” plot in Saints At the River. Both accounts are seen through a first-person point of view, but are told by people with different reasons for being involved. The factual account is told by Buzz Williams, a former Forest Service Ranger who was the executive director of the Chattooga River Watershed Coalition. Rash’s account is seen through the eyes of Maggie Glenn, a native who grew up on the river but must now cover the events as unbiased as possible as a photographer for a Columbia newspaper. In addition, Glenn’s blossoming romance with Allen Hemphill, the reporter she’s assigned to work with on the story, develops into a story within the story. The details of Glenn and Hemphill’s rousing romance, such as the fact that Hemphill has already lost his wife and daughter or the fact that they disagree when it comes to how the river should be handled, add to the drama of the novel. However, the factual account contains little, if any, dramatic effect. As a result of these differences, Rash’s account seems watered down and lacks the hard information a story like this deserves. The factual account, though very bland and hard to read, focuses on details and strictly describes what happened and how it happened. Understandably, Rash probably altered the story line for dramatic effect; however, this came at a loss to specific details that are of the utmost importance when one hears of a tragedy of this magnitude, such as the fact that before the portable dam was even an option, there were already two attempts at retrieving the girl’s body from the river. Therefore, as previously mentioned, the factual account told by Buzz Williams is more meaningful.