NWSA Journal

The Performer and Her Community

Beverly Carter-Sexton is a storyteller and health educator from Rockcastle County, Kentucky. She was born on December 20, 1953, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father worked in a chemical company and did not have a high school diploma, and her mother quit school in the fifth grade to work on a farm. Storytelling was their entertainment; on Saturday nights they would stay up all night telling stories. After her father died when she was nine, Carter-Sexton and her family came back to Rockcastle County to live near her mother’s family. There, Beverly went to a two-room school. Since they had no playground equipment, the children sat around and told stories and Beverly acquired a reputation for being a good storyteller: “I could always tell the scariest stories and make them cry,” she said (Carter-Sexton 1992). Carter-Sexton learned many of her “haint” or ghost tales from her grandfather. She learned her tales about real life from her mother and grandmother (Carter-Sexton 1999).

The stories Carter-Sexton learned from her mother and grandmother reflected the family’s life in a poor, rural county. Many of her mother’s stories dealt with hunger, reflecting times when she was growing up in the 1920s when there was not enough food. Her mother’s family farmed. Her maternal grandfather worked in logging and coal mining, and supplemented his income with moonshine. Her paternal grandfather, from Wise County, Virginia, worked in a limestone quarry. Her father joined the merchant marines when he was 14, and, later, the navy. He worked as a leathersmith and at a chemical company in Cincinnati, where he died at age 49.

Rockcastle County is part of the Central Region of Appalachia, as defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission, and had a population of 15,417 in 1995. With a 1994 average per capita income of $12,340, compared to a U.S. average of $21,696, the county has a high rate of poverty. In 1995, 30.7 percent of the county’s population lived in poverty (Appalachian Regional Commission 1996, n.p.). The major employers in the county include two small factories, the health department, the hospital, and the schools. Many must find jobs outside the county. [End Page 113]

When Carter-Sexton went to Berea College to get a degree in health education, she took a storytelling class from Professor Harry Robie, who encouraged her to perform in public. She was the first Berea student invited to perform at one of the convocations, a cultural event sponsored by the college. She has since performed at several storytelling festivals, including the NAPPS Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee; produced one audio recording of her Jack Tales; and performed at the Appalachian Studies Conference in Berea, Kentucky, in 1990. Carter-Sexton has a daughter who is 26, and a son who is 17. Recently she and her husband adopted another 17-year-old son.

Carter-Sexton has a repertoire of about 500 stories that she could tell if prompted. Half of these are “haint” tales and the rest include Jack tales, personal, family, humorous, and inspirational tales. Like many Appalachian natives, Carter-Sexton lays claim to both European-American and Cherokee heritage; her maternal great-grandmother was Cherokee, as was her paternal great-grandmother. A slim woman with high cheekbones and dark hair and eyes, Carter-Sexton shows her Cherokee heritage. Although she tells Cherokee tales to her family, she does not perform them publicly, since there are excellent Native American storytellers who tell such tales (Carter-Sexton 1999).

Carter-Sexton cannot remember where she learned “Lazy Jack,” but says that her mother might have told it. She heard an older man at Berea College named Fred Parks tell the story and it reminded her that she knew that tale. She also alerted me to a Cree tale called “Skeleton Woman” with a similar motif of auto-cannibalism told by Gayle Ross. Although Ross’s tale has a few details in it that are quite similar to her tale, Carter-Sexton says that she had not heard it before she learned “Lazy Jack,” and that it did not influence her own telling.

I first heard her tell her favorite story, “Lazy Jack,” at the 1990 Appalachian Studies Conference. Intrigued by the shocking portrait of Jack as a cannibal and by her portrayal of Jack’s wife as a strong survivor, I went to Berea College in January 1993 to videotape her telling “Lazy Jack.” She told the story to a folklore class of ten students taught by Professor Loyal Jones.

A Performance-centered Text of “Lazy Jack”

The following performance-centered text of “Lazy Jack” translates not only the words of the performance, but also Carter-Sexton’s dynamic, aesthetic use of voice and body, as well as her interaction with the audience. Since people often code their social messages nonverbally, especially when they are resisting dominance, such texts are vital in the analysis of women’s discourse. Words typed in bold-face indicate greater emphasis; dashes between letters indicate elongated sounds. Line breaks [End Page 114] represent slight pauses between phrases. When there are too many words to fit on a line without breaking it, the indented line following indicates that it is a continuation of the line. Paralinguistic modifiers of speech appear in the left margin, in italics. Gestures and facial expressions appear in italics in the right margin or within the verbal discourse. Dashes within parentheses indicate that the nonverbal behavior in the preceding line is repeated.

Underlines indicate the performer’s metanarrative and metaperformative comments and asides to the audience. Any time the storyteller directly addresses the audience in comments about the story, herself, or the performance, the line or lines are underlined. These underlined passages reveal how the storyteller traditionalizes and recontextualizes the story (Bauman and Braid 1998, 112–114). Audience reactions appear in brackets. ²

“Lazy Jack”
by Beverly Carter-Sexton

The story I’m going to tell is one I told at Convo (Convocation) so you may have heard it and I know Brad has heard it ‘cause I told it to him through the Upward Bound program when I was over there. It’s a story about Jack. I always have to put my little gloves on first (puts on black gloves, with the finger tips cut off). I grew up over in Rockcastle County. How many of you are from Rockcastle County? All right. They have a lot of stories in Rockcastle County and I grew up on Brush Creek, on a ridge over there and uh learned a lot of my stories from my mom and grandpa and just from going to school—went to a two room school actually—I started to say it’s a one room school, but it was a two room school—we were connected by a porch. And I learned a lot of stories that way. And so the story I want to tell you is a story about Jack and I tell it in my dialect. I just gradually get deeper and deeper into my dialect and I just forget it and then—so some of the words you may not kind of understand or have trouble with and I might tell you later, I guess, what I was talking about, I guess. All right. [pause]   Well hit was a wa—y long time ago . And there was this here woman. Now she had a little baby. She said “La—w, ain’t I got me a prize” 5 She was wron—ng . She had her a du—d . [laughter] She named him Jack. Now right from the very beginning She kno-wed Jack was a lazy little youngin. 10 La—w he wouldn’t even suck. She had to hold him up there and just squirt it in. (holds imaginary baby at her breast and mimes squirting milk into his mouth) [laughter] Lazy youngin he wa-s . [End Page 115] Took him forever ‘fore he mustered up enough—you know—to walk. Well, things didn’t get no better as Jack grew older. 15 When he got big enough he got into a rockin’ chair pulled it over ‘ere into the middle of the room Set down in it Commenced to rocking. (rocks torso back and forth) Felt real good, it did. He thought, 20 “spend the rest of my life right here in this chair.” Tried to too. [laughter] Rockin’, rockin’. He’d sleep in that there chair He’d eat in that there chair 25 He’d set there and he’d say, “Mama, Mama, bring me a balo-ney sandwich, Mama. Put me some mus—tard on it, on—-ion, Get me a coca co-la.” 30 La—w, he was lazy. Why don’t you know he cut him a ho-le out in the (traces circle in imaginary chair bottom) bottom of that chair and set right the-re to do his business [laughter]. He wouldn’t even go to the outhouse he’s so sorry. [laughter]. Well now his Mama didn’t like that too much. And she would try to get him up out of that chair. 35 Lawsome. Right there he’d rock.   Sleep, eat but years passed. Jack turned eighteen years old. Now that there’s the year folks can get rid of you if they wants to 40 I done got rid of one. [laughter] She said, “Jack, got some propositions for you.” “One,” said “you can go to work right here on this farm.” Said “I’ll continue to feed you.” Said “you work for your food, I’ll feed you. 45 Proposition number two: You can go out yonder in the world, get you a job, bring in some income to buy food, I’ll feed you. Number three. Don’t want to do none of those, 50 You just hit the road, Jack.” [laughter] Jack he studied on that for awhile. He said, “Well, Mama, if I go to work on this here farm, Mama, why I might get blisters on my hands, Mama, (holds up palms of hands) 55 and I ain’t never had no blisters before. Why, why Mama, why they might burst. I-I-I’d get infection [End Page 116] why it might set up blood pizining, run to my heart and kill me, Mama. 60 You don’t want me to die do you? And Mama, If I went out yonder in the world and went to work, Why, la—w, I might work up a sweat. Law, you don’t want—work up a sweat and git all damp and get chilled. 65 Why it might, that might set up that p-monia in my chest there and I might die, Mama. You don’t want me to die now do you Mama?” She kicked him out of the house. There Jack was. Out in the wild. 70 He said, “Now what am I going to do.” He had to have food. And he studied on that for a spell. “I know what I’ll do. I’ll find me a woman to take care of me. 75 Why she’ll cook my vittles for me, treat me good. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll find me a woman.” And he commenced to looking. 80 Now he called on all those girls in Rockcastle County that wadn’t married. They’d heard about old lazy Jack. There ain’t a one of them would have him. So, he came on over to Madison County. Started calling on the girls over here. 85 His reputation had reached over here too. And none of these gir-ls would court him. They knowed he was lazy. So he went o-n north up there to Fay-ette County, in Lexington. He thought, “These girls ain’t heard of me up here.” 90 He was wro—ng. [laughter] They had heard of him . Why he had just run out of places to call on to go courtin’. Felt really bad, you know, walkin’ down the road, when, all of a sudden , 95 some girl came running after him, said (shouting) “Wait a minute, Jack. Wait a minute. (mimes run, with both arms raised above head) I’ll marry you.” He just stopped. He said, “you will?” 100 (loud) She said, “Yeah, I’ll marry you Jack.” You see, there was something he didn’t know about her. [End Page 117] She was just as la—zy as he was. Her mama done kicked her out of the house. She said, “I’ll get me a man to take care of me.” 105 And there they were. Got married they did. Now wadn’t that a pair. Neither one of them would work. And so what do you think they did? 110 What most old lazy sorry people do. They commenced to calling on their kinfolk. They’d go visit a spell here, and they’d stay, and they’d stay, 115 and they’d stay, until folks would just have to literally push them out of the house. And they’d go and they’d call on somebody else. And they’d stay, and they’d stay, 120 and they’d stay. Well finally, they ran out of kinfolks. Nobody’d put up with them no mo—re. They didn’t want them a-coming back. 125 They knowed they just a-comin’ in to eat and sleep there. Couldn’t get no work out of ‘em. So they found themselves on the road again. And they were thinking, “What are we gonna do.” Well, Jack had an uncle 130 had a real soft heart and he said “Jack,” he said, “got a place over yonder. It’s small.” 135 He said, “It’s got a little house on it.” And he said, “If you’ll work that farm,” said “It’ll make you a living. Enough to feed you. It’s yours. Just move in.” 140 Well, Jack and that woman moved in—they didn’t have no place to go. Well it was one room hit was, nice little place. Had a few sticks of furniture in it. And one whole side of the wall was a big sto—ne fireplace. (traces shape of fireplace with hands) Had two rockin’ chairs there. 145 Well, Jack and that woman pulled them rocking chairs up there in front of that fireplace and they set down. (she sits down on a chair and starts rocking her torso back and forth as she speaks) [End Page 118] Felt real good it did. (still rocking) They commenced to rocking. (- - -) And that woman said, “Jack, (- - -) 150 you best get out yonder and cut us some firewood. (- - -) Wintertime’s gonna be comin’ on. We’re gonna get mi—ghty cold. And Jack said, “Well now I will. 155 But I gotta rest a spell. (yawning) ohhm, ohhm, I’m plu-mb tuckered out from all that walkin’. Oh, I’ll get some firewood later but uh you best get out yonder and get us some vittles. Wintertime’s gonna be comin’ on and we’re gonna get mi—ghty hungry.” 160 And that woman said, (yawning) Oh, Jack, oh you know I will, but, but first let me take me a little nap right now and I’ll get us some food a little bit later. Ooooh (yawns). (exasperated) And there they set. 165 Nei-ther one of them ’ould get up and do a dad gone thi-ng sit there a-rockin’ in front of that (outlines fireplace in air with hands) stone fireplace . [laughter] Well, wintertime did come on. 170 And it got up in the deepest, darkest part of wintertime. Up in Ja-nuary it was. Wi-nd a blowin’ outside Sno-w a fallin’ on the ground Ooooooo! It was co-ld. 175 And there Ja-ck and that wo-man set . “Hhh-dzz-zz-zz-zz-zz! Dzz-zz-zz-zz-zz!” (mimes shivering, hugging arms close to chest) And Jack said, “I-I-I-I’m c-c-c—I’m c-c-c-cold dzz-dz-dz-dz.” (- - -) And that woman said, “I’m c-c-c-c-c-c-cold t-t-t-too Ja-Jack. (- - -) 180 Go get us some w-wood and b-build us a f-fire for freezing.”(- - -) And Jack said, “But I got to have some f-food first. (- - -) Go get us some food.” (- - -)(exasperated) And there they set. [laughter] 185 We—ll, that woman was settin’ the-re and she looked out yo—nder through that winder (points to right with extended arm) and the—re stood death by starvation staring at her. [laughter] And she looked out yo-nder through that winder (points left with extended arm) 190 and there stood death by freezing [End Page 119] staring at her. And she knew she was a-fixin to die. And she thought, “La—w, I’m too yo-ung to die.” 195 and she jumped up out of that chair and she said, (jumps up) “Jack, I’m a-go—ing after some vittles and while I’m gone you chop us some wood and build us a fire.” and lickety-split out the do—or she we—nt. There set Jack. (mimes Jack sitting down, hugging arms and shivering) 200 “Uh-h-h-h(- - -) I-I sure h-h-hopes she h-hurries back. (- - -) I’m so c-c-cold and h-h-hungry I just can’t stand it.” (- - -) Just a freezin’ and a shiverin’. (- - -) But he wouldn’t get up 205 and wouldn’t go chop no wood and he looked out through yo-nder winder (points to right with extended arm) and he saw death by starvation starin’ at him. [laughter] and he looked out through yo-nder winder (points to left with extended arm) and he saw death by freezin’ starin’ at him. 210 And he knew he was a-fixin’ to die. and he said, “La—w, I’m too purty to die.” [laughter] And he jumped up out of that chair (jumps up) and he broke it into some pieces (mimes breaking chair) 215 and he threw it there in that sto-ne fireplace (mimes throwing wood in fireplace) lit it up got it to goin’ you know and he was so co-ld and he was just as clo-se to that fi-re as he could get Had his ha-nds in there tryin’ to warm ’em up (holds arms outstretched in front as if warming hands by fire) they was just i-cicles they were all nu—mb you know (- - -) 220 And he was tryin’ to get em warm and all of a sudden his fingertips commenced to flamin’. (shakes hands as if they were on fire) Caught ’em on fire he did. (- - -) “Oh! oh! oh! oh!” tryin’ to get ‘em out (- - -) “um! um! um!” (sticks fingers in mouth to cool them off) 225 “ummm! ummm!” (begins to lick fingers) And he commenced to eatin’ the meat off the ends of his fingers. Well, he stuck his whole hands in there (mimes sticking hands in fire) cooked the palms up right real good, [audience groans] ate the meat off that. (mimes eating hands) 230 Stuck his a-rm in there and kna-wed all the meat off (mimes eating forearm) [audience groans] Stuck that side in there (turns side to fire, as if roasting it) [End Page 120] Cooked himself up re-al good he did. Every little piece he could reach he cooked and ate up. Everything except a little patch right up here (pats back of head) 235 and right back there (pats tailbone) that he couldn’t reach. And there he stood (mimes Jack spastically swinging arms and rolling head) Just a bunch of old bones and ligaments. (- - -) No more muscles, (- - -) no more meat. (- - -) 240 Just a-ll like a bunch of rubberbands (- - -) holdin’ him together. ( - - -) He was still hu-ngry and he said, “I’ve got to get me something else to eat.” And so he commenced goin’ to the door. (walks spastically) 245 And he would walk like this you know (- - -) If you ain’t got no mu-scles or meat left on you. [laughter] (- - -) And he was goin’ toward the door. ( - - -) And he go—t over there to the door when that woman came back. 250 errrrrr——thump (mimes door opening and slamming) Just smashed him up against the wall. He was a real skinny old fellow now. And she walked in. (shouting) She said, “Jack, got us some vittles!” (mimes carrying large basket) 255 Had a big bushel basket full of ‘em. Set ‘em down. “I see you got a fire goin’ there Jack.” (sets basket down) And that door creaked shut. errrrrrrrrrrr And she turned around 260 And she saw him a-standin’ there And she said, “ahhhhhh” (screams and runs back, hands up in fright) “Jack! What’s a happened to ya?” and he just came ru—nnin’ over there (mimes spastic run) and he fell into those vittles just a scoopin’ up and eatin’ ‘em you know (mimes Jack kneeling and shoveling food into his mouth) 265 And she just stand back a-watchin’ him. (steps back, hands up in fright) He got up and he looked at her. Walked up to her (walks up to woman in audience) and said, “Gimme, gimme, gimme your ha-nd. Gimme your ha—nd. (reaches and takes woman’s hand) 270 she wadn’t that foolish. She knew what he was gonna do. Don’t you do that. (shakes finger at woman, admonishingly) [End Page 121] Get your hand back over there. (gives woman back her hand) He’s gonna eat her is what he’s gonna do. 275 And she knew it. And she jerked her hand ba-ck. She said, “You ain’t a eatin’ my hand, Jack!” [laughter] And she commenced to runnin’ from him. Well, right around and around the room they went (draws circle in space with finger) 280 And him right after her just like this. [laughter] (mimes spastic walk) Of course he couldn’t catch her cause she had her muscles and she could just stay in front of him. 285 They went right around and around and around he was persistent he wouldn’t give up. So finally she threw open the door and she took off running cross the fi—eld. And he came after her. Cross the mou-ntain she went. 290 And he went after her. Down through the valley and over the next mountain And he went after her. La—w they ra-n and they ra-n 295 and they ra-n. For days, and days, and days And he chased her all the way to the edge of the world. (intense) It’s out there folks. [laughter] She done come to it. 300 And she looked down And there was a river. But before you could get to the river, there were cliffs of rocks down yonder . And she couldn’t see what was on the other side. 305 But she looked behind her (looks behind her) And there came old Jack after her (mimes Jack’s spastic run) And she thought, “Well, I can get me a runnin’ go And I just might make it 310 and hit the river or I might make it out yonder to the other side. Course nobody knows what’s out there.” But she kno—wed if she just stood there 315 O-ld lazy Jack was gonna get her. So she got back (backs up to wall behind her) and she got her a-runnin’ go. [End Page 122] Now folks, she had built up muscles. 320 After a—ll that runnin’ and all that distance La—w that woman had muscles. [laughter] And she got back. (backs up further to wall in room) and she got her a-runnin’ go. (exaggerated running motion) and she ran and she sa——iled out past those ro-cks, (extends right arm out to mime sailing off cliff into the air) 325 hit that river, put those muscles to work and she swa—m away. (mimes swimming the crawl with her arms) Jack said, “That old woman can do that I can do that too.” And he got back yonder (backs up to wall to begin run) And he got him a runnin’ go. 330 But now he didn’t have him no muscles. He was just a bunch of dried bones and ligaments. And so here he came. (mimes spastic run) And he ra—n up there and he ju-mped (extends arms only a short way, as if the jump fell short of reaching the water) and his old bo—nes 335 they hit those cliffs and they popped and cracked a—ll over that cliffside. That woman she never looked back to see what happened to Jack. She swam ou—t of that river. 340 She went to work got her a jo-b folks . Didn’t need her no old man ever after that . Made her o-wn way. And Jack— You can stand there at the edge of the world, 345 and listen and you can hear a-clackin’ and a-ploppin’ a-clackin’ and a-ploppin’. Some folks say, 350 “That’s the river down there a-lappin’ up against those rocks.” Other folks say, “um um-um,(shakes her head) that’s old Jack down yonder, 355 tryin’ to pu—ll hisself back together.” And if I were you, I wouldn’t want to be standin’ the-re if he ever does ’cause ol—d Jack’s gonna be mi-ghty hongry. and that’s the truth. 360 And that’s the end of that story. [End Page 123]

The Performance Tradition

Those familiar with the image of Jack as the likable heroic trickster who appears in Richard Chase’s Jack Tales (1943) might be surprised by this slothful, cannibalistic anti-hero. Yet as Carl Lindahl argues, there are many Jacks in the folk tradition and the one perpetuated by Richard Chase’s work is more Chase’s creation than an accurate record of a living tradition (1994, xxii–xxxii). Carter-Sexton’s Jack shares several characteristics of the archetypal trickster. He is a deceiver, a shape-shifter, and a situation inverter. Like many tricksters, he is lazy, but he has an uncontrollable appetite, “forever hungry and in search of food” (Hynes 1993, 42). According to William J. Hynes, tricksters often cross and reset the lines between life and death—images of “skeletons that come alive and give chase” are common (1993, 40). Tricksters often get their comeuppance at the hands of other tricksters and, in this tale, Jack meets his match in a lazy woman determined to con a man into doing all the work.

This performance of “Lazy Jack” combines two central motifs: a slothful hero and auto-cannibalism. The tale has some ingredients of the Lazy Boy genre of folk tales, such as an unusually lazy male protagonist (Bottigheimer 1993, 270). But unlike the Lazy Boy tales, Carter-Sexton’s male protagonist cannot find a rich woman to support him or better his condition. Instead, he unknowingly marries a woman who is as slothful as he is.

Certainly the most striking motif in this tale is auto-cannibalism. The only versions of this motif (G 51, auto-cannibalism or “Person eats own flesh”) listed by Stith Thompson in his Motif Index of Folk-Literature (1955–1958) appear among North American Indians. A Seneca tale collected by Jeremiah Curtin is surprisingly similar in certain details to Sexton’s version. In “The Woman Who Became a Monster Through the Orenda of Her Husband’s Dogs,” a woman has been mistreating her husband’s dogs and in revenge, the dogs cast a spell that causes her to devour herself, her daughter, and then try to eat her husband:

It so chanced that she cut her finger badly and was not able to stanch the bleeding. In attempting to do so she even thrust the finger into her mouth and began sucking it. She found that she liked the taste of her own blood, and later even the meat she was cooking did not taste so good. So she sucked all the blood out of that finger; then she cut another finger and sucked that, for she had forgotten all about the cooking. Next she cut one arm and sucked it, then the other; then one leg and then the other. Finally, when she had sucked all the blood out of her body, she cut off her flesh, piece after piece, and ate it. The dogs sat around watching her, and her little girl also was looking on. After she had eaten all her own flesh she seized her daughter and, though the child cried and begged for mercy, the unnatural mother, paying no heed to her pleadings, killed her and ate her.

(Curtin and Hewitt 1910–11, 231–32) [End Page 125]

The little dog warns his master that his wife has become a man-eater, and so he and the dog run off to the settlement to escape and warn others. Just as the wife in “Lazy Jack” escapes by jumping in a river and swimming away, the husband escapes by making a small raft and paddling away. The cannibalistic wife in the Seneca tale attempts to leap onto the raft, but misses it and drowns (Curtin and Hewitt 1910–11, 231–32).

A Cree tale called “The Skeleton Woman,” also involves the auto-cannibalism and cannibalism of a woman, who tries to devour her husband. In this tale, told by Texas storyteller Gayle Ross, who learned the tale from Cree storyteller Ron Evans, a couple is suffering a harsh winter and has little to eat. While her husband is out hunting for deer, the woman disobeys his injunction not to build a fire. She gets her hands too close to the fire and they catch on fire. She pops her fingers in her mouth to cool them, likes the taste, and begins eating her own body. Unlike Jack, she does not continue roasting her body first—she eats herself raw, until she is nothing but a rattling, old skeleton then hides in a corner, waiting for her husband. When he returns, she heads straight for him, her bones making a terrible sound. She chases him to the edge of a deep canyon, with a river beneath. But instead of jumping in and swimming away, or finding a boat and rowing away, the man finds a little old magic woman who lives in a house at the edge of the canyon and asks her for help. She tells him that he must first pick some berries for her and chop some wood.

After the old man does the tasks, she goes to the edge of the cliff and stretches her body into a bridge for him to cross. After he crosses, she draws back to normal. When the Skeleton Woman arrives and orders the old woman to get her across to the other side, the old woman asks her to pick berries and chop firewood. The Skeleton Woman refuses and threatens to eat the old woman. So the little magic woman stretches her body into a bridge for the Skeleton Woman. But when the Skeleton Woman reaches the middle of the bridge, the little old woman starts to sway and shake, toppling the Skeleton Woman off her back and onto the rocks below.

The old man lives with the little old woman at the edge of the canyon. But it is still said today, that if one walks to the edge of the cliff, one can hear the sound of the bones of the old woman trying to pull themselves back together and find a way to get back up to the top of the cliff. “And the Lord help us all if she should ever find it” (Ross 1991). As in Carter-Sexton’s version, Ross uses sound effects to convey the enjoyment of eating the fingers (“um, um, um!”), and to imitate the bones clattering (“Keee!, Keee!, Keee!”).

Whether Native American motifs of auto-cannibalism influenced Appalachian versions of “Lazy Jack” can only be conjectured. If the motif existed among the Cherokee (related to the Seneca), who intermarried with and associated with Appalachian settlers, then perhaps it may have [End Page 126] influenced the “Lazy Jack” story. In both of the versions from Native American cultures, the wives are evil and cannibalistic. They are portrayed as greedy, and in the Cree tale, disobedient to the husband. In contrast, in the “Lazy Jack” tale that Carter-Sexton learned, the gender of the cannibal is inverted and the male becomes the human-eating skeleton. Carter-Sexton’s tale transforms the initially weak and lazy female character into a strong, determined survivor who becomes capable of making her own way in the world.

Jill Dolan argues that most performances and representations are geared to male spectators and “tend to objectify women performers and female spectators as passive, invisible, unspoken subjects.” In viewing such performances, a feminist spectator has the “nagging suspicion that she has become complicit in the objectification or erasure of her own gender class” (Dolan 1988, 2). But as a creative storyteller from a family of strong women who portray strong females in their stories, Carter-Sexton is quite articulate about her choice to appropriate a male-centered narrative into a form that reflects a feminine perspective. She is not content to leave the story with the focus on Jack:

I changed her, now I did that. Because the way the story is told . . . he chases her up there and then she jumps. And I don’t remember how I did hear it, whether she gets killed or what happens, but it’s basically that’s it, . . . she’s not the focus anymore and he’s still in focus. . . . I wanted to hear more. I mean, . . . what happens to her. And so I—it just came natural. . . . she has these muscles—of course she’s been working and she swims out and she doesn’t need this anymore. I mean she starts out, she’s wanting a man. She thinks she has to have a man to take care of her. And I’m like, “No she doesn’t.” Let’s have her be a strong person and come out of this and so she does. . . . So she goes out and she makes her own living and I did do that. I mean I added that.

(Carter-Sexton 1993)

Carter-Sexton stresses that she uses stories to comment on life, but that her commentary is unconscious. She says that her stories reflect her life and that she makes the women in all of her Jack tales strong:

and my life shows through in these stories in some way, and that’s why it’s an unconscious thing. . . . And so that’s why the women in these stories—they have a more prominent part than I think traditionally that they have in all of them. I tell different types of Jack tales and—the women in them—they’re strong women.

(Carter-Sexton 1993)

Implicit Coding Strategies in “Lazy Jack”

Many feminist messages in women’s cultures are covert, often because the patriarchal social structure heavily sanctions open criticism. According [End Page 127] to Joan R. Radner and Susan S. Lanser, in “Strategies of Coding in Women’s Cultures,” implicit coding of resistant or subversive messages occurs “when there is a situation of oppression, dominance, or risk for a particular individual or identifiable group” (1993, 9). Radner and Lanser argue that “it is sexual dominance that makes women likely to express themselves, and communicate to other women, through coded means.” By code, they mean, “a set of signals—words, forms, behaviors, signifiers of some kind—that protect the creator from the consequences of openly expressing particular messages” (1993, 3). Three of the six coding techniques discussed by Radner and Lanser are especially prominent in “Lazy Jack”: appropriation, juxtaposition, and incompetence (1993, 10–23). ³

Research on the gendered roles and lives of women in Appalachia has been minimal. In her review of women in Appalachian historiography, Barbara Ellen Smith finds that “apart from a few, specific individuals, women’s experiences and perceptions have been peripheral in the major works of Appalachian history” (1998, 5). Scholarly accounts of rural Appalachia describe male/female relationships as patriarchal, with women acquiring more power in their households in old age (Beaver 1992, 79–110; Campbell 1921, 124–41; Kephart 1913, 530, 331–32). According to Patricia Beaver, “the wife rarely interrupts or contradicts her husband in public and defers to his position as authority and spokesman” (1992, 97). In situations in which women must publicly defer to male authority, women are more likely to use implicit coding strategies.

Carter-Sexton makes clear that she has provided something that was missing from the tale as she first heard it. These changes involve her interrelated uses of the coding techniques of appropriation, juxtaposition, and incompetence. Appropriation is a coding strategy that involves “adapting to feminist purposes forms or materials normally associated with male culture or with androcentric images of the feminine” (Radner and Lanser 1993, 10). Juxtaposition is the “ironic arrangement of texts, artifacts, or performances,” and in written literature may be accomplished through “titles, epigraphs, the placement of stanzas, voices, or paragraphs” (Radner and Lanser 1993, 13–14). The feminist coding strategy of “incompetence at conventionally feminine activities,” such as cooking or cleaning, serves as a way to express resistance to patriarchal expectations (Radner and Lanser 1993, 20). This strategy of incompetence “may in fact be appropriating a male stance,” since men often brag about their incompetence at “women’s” activities (Radner and Lanser 1993, 22). Such overlap with the strategy of appropriation “indicates how complex the interpretation of a coded act can be,” since strategies “blend into one another” (Radner and Lanser 1993, 23).

Jack’s mother is the first woman we meet in “Lazy Jack.” Since no father is mentioned, we must assume that she is raising Jack alone. While at first glance she may appear to be the long-suffering mother of a lazy [End Page 128] brat, the performer skillfully portrays her as a strong female by appropriating masculine images. Knowing “right from the start” that Jack is lazy because he won’t suck, the mother squirts her milk from her nipple into Jack’s mouth (lines 10–11). By miming this powerful scene, Carter-Sexton uses her body to underscore the dominant role of the mother. Commenting that the mother “didn’t like that too much,” when Jack was too lazy to use the outhouse, the narrator says, “And she would try to get him up out of that chair” for years, but to no avail (lines 32–37). After she has fulfilled her legal responsibilities to care for him until he attains his majority at 18, the mother confronts Jack with propositions based on the social expectations for all adults in rural Appalachian communities: to achieve worth through work and reciprocity (Beaver 1992, 157, 161). Her ultimatum is clear: “Don’t want to do none of those, you just hit the road, Jack” (lines 49–50). While Jack expects to find a soft heart that will give in to his counter-pleas of how work might kill him, Carter-Sexton balances and caps his longwinded complaints with one terse line, “She kicked him out of the house” (line 67). Both the strong physical imagery implied by squirting her milk (parallel to male ejaculation) and kicking Jack out, along with her ultimatums, are clear examples of appropriating masculine behavior.

The initial clue that Carter-Sexton’s second female character, Jack’s wife, is different comes when she first appears chasing after Jack, shouting “I’ll marry you” (line 97), thus appropriating the man’s role at initiating a proposal. She also is the first of the lazy pair to initiate a work directive, telling her husband to cut some firewood before wintertime comes (line 150), and then after wintertime arrives, again ordering Jack to “Go get us some w-wood and b-build us a f-fire for freezing” (line 180). In “Lazy Jack,” the woman Jack chooses to marry (or who chooses him), is just as lazy as he is. When he fails to bring in firewood, she does not do the chore herself. And she refuses to gather any food for the upcoming winter. She clearly exhibits incompetence as a wife by refusing to do any chores. Only when she sees death by starvation and freezing staring at her through the window, does she leap into action. She asserts control of the situation, ordering her husband to bring in firewood while she returns with the food (lines 196–197).

The implicit coding strategy of juxtaposition highlights the wife’s growing strength. Juxtaposed to her statement that she is “too yo-ung to die” (line 194), comes Jack’s statement reflecting both his vanity and effeminateness (and evoking a large laugh from the audience) that he is “too purty to die” (line 212). When attacked by her cannibalistic husband, Jack’s wife out-runs and out-jumps him, gaining muscles and strength through the exercise of escaping from him. Again, the storyteller’s body becomes a site for coding resistance, as she juxtaposes the strong body of the wife with the spastic, skeletal body of Jack. The audience laughs at [End Page 129] the gender reversal signaled by the storyteller’s emphasis on the wife’s muscles in a metanarrative aside: “La—w that woman had muscles. [laughter]” (line 321).

Carter-Sexton provides Jack’s wife with the courage to face the unknown—to leap off the edge of a cliff, rather than to die at the hands of her husband (lines 307–315). Giving the woman the last words, Carter-Sexton says that “she never looked back to see what happened to Jack. She swam ou—t of that river. She went to work got her a jo-b folks. Didn’t need her no old man ever after that. Made her own way” (lines 337–342).

This empowering of the female seemed so strong in “Lazy Jack” that I asked Carter-Sexton if she had been influenced by feminism:

I don’t think it’s anything from the outside. . . . It’s just the way I grew up and the women were very strong traditionally in my family and my father died when I was nine so my mother was the presence . . . she never remarried. Grandma was very strong . . . she was always the focus in the home. It was just, women just have always been strong characters in my life, in real life. I really don’t think feminism has been an influence in it. It’s just been the way women were in my family.

(Carter-Sexton 1993)

In addition to empowering Jack’s wife, Carter-Sexton also shifts the emphasis of the “Lazy Jack” tale from hunger to apathy. When her mother told tales about hunger and cannibalism, often tales about eating babies or children, she was reflecting the real part of her life that was concerned with hunger. But in Carter-Sexton’s own life, apathy, rather than hunger, has had a stronger impact on her. Jack “was consuming himself but not doing anything about it” (Carter-Sexton 1993). She uses the theme of self-cannibalism as a graphic metaphor for poverty that feeds on itself. When I asked her how “Lazy Jack” was a comment on laziness, she replied:

I really like that one because of the what we call the sorry people and you know they just never do work, they just stay where they’re at. And I’m not talking about people that have to live off of welfare or whatever ‘cause I’ve had to live off of—not off of welfare, but I’ve had to get food stamps . . . and a medical card. But we continued to work. . . . It was like, we’re not going to stay in that place. . . . And it’s hard work. It’s like a big hole—you know the more you try to climb up, you keep on struggling. And there’s some people that . . . don’t even try to get out. They’re content with that and they just sit there and they just say, O.K. “Feed me, feed me,” . . . like old Lazy Jack did. . . . And when I tell that story that’s kind of what I see is these type of people who don’t try to get ahead. But that woman in that story, . . . when she’s faced with death and her future—and really that’s what she’s doing . . . she’s looking into the future and she sees these are the alternatives. Am I just going to sit here? And she says, “NO! I’m not.” And simply—by getting up, she has made the decision I am going to do something. . . . And I think so many people they just don’t ever get up, they just sit there, and then there it comes in on them, you know, it’s like there is no future. And that’s how I see that story.

(Carter-Sexton 1993) [End Page 130]

In another interview, Carter-Sexton said that this story “just reminded me how women struggled to get away from a bad situation.” It reminded her of the poverty she saw in Rockcastle County: “So many sorry men. Women marrying these sorry men and women are sorry too. But she gets out. She changes things. I can relate it to my present environment” (Carter-Sexton 1992).

Carter-Sexton’s other stories also have strong female characters which she attributes to the women’s storytelling tradition in her family: “The women in the stories were always strong in some way. It may not seem like they were. I’m trying to think of one story I tell, a story about when Jack gets a wife.” Carter-Sexton summarizes the plot of “Jack Gets a Wife,” her version of Richard Chase’s folk tale, “Presentneed, Bymeby, and Hereafter” (Chase 1948), about a man who marries a wife who seems to misunderstand all his instructions and do all the chores backwards. When he tells her that he would like to have some greased cabbages to eat, she takes lard and goes out to the field and greases all the cabbage heads, causing them to die. Radner and Lanser argue that such incompetence at traditionally female tasks “is virtually a signifier of masculinity, something men conventionally brag about, and a woman who claims such incompetence may in fact be appropriating a male stance” (1993, 22).

Despite a whole series of comic mishaps, this bumbling female manages to chase away robbers and acquire all their jewels. She tells her husband that she is going back to the house and asks if he is coming too, and she sashays off, swinging her hips. Attracted to her, he follows. The story ends with the woman and her husband living together for the rest of their lives and having a whole house full of children. But Carter-Sexton adds that she never had to do any chores again: “Now that there woman never had to kill her no more hogs or work in no more meat or do her any gardening. Because she had those jewels and she was rich. And she hired her servants to take care of her. And that’s the truth and that’s the end of that story” (Carter-Sexton n.d.). Although on one level the story can be read as the tale of an incompetent woman, that very incompetence serves as the means to her liberation from female drudgery.

One problem with implicitly coded messages, however, is that not everyone always understands the implied message. Carter-Sexton recalls that once when she told this story, a person in the audience commented to her that she “made women look really ignorant.” But Carter-Sexton says, in disagreement, “but this woman comes out ahead. I mean she is a strong woman. She gets rid of the robbers, she saves Jack’s life, and she has all this money. So, I think she’s a—I like her.” When her grandmother would tell such stories, says Carter-Sexton, “She showed that women were very smart. Just by her looks and gestures you’d know that women weren’t to be pitied” (1993). [End Page 131]

Recontextualization Strategies

A hallmark of oral tradition performances is their situated use in social settings (Bauman 1986, 38; Bauman and Braid 1998, 111; Bauman and Briggs 1990, 69). Although tales may be recorded in various media, each time a storyteller performs for a live audience, he or she must relate the story to the immediate social situation. This process, known as “contextualization” or “recontextualization,” is transformational, and alters “at least some aspects” of a tale’s form, function, or meaning” (Bauman and Braid 1998, 114).

When Carter-Sexton begins the story “Lazy Jack,” she uses an opening metanarrational formula that sends interpretive signals to the audience about the nature of the story. The opening line, “Well hit was a wa—-y long time ago” is typical of the genre of folktales, fictional stories that take place in some unhistorical, vague past. The closing formula, “And that’s the truth and that’s the end of that story” is often used by Jackie Torrence, Carter-Sexton, and other storytellers, even when the story is fictional, to indicate that the story carries some truth in it. Both opening and closing formulae, along with the rhythmical lines and repetition, help “entextualize” the story (Bauman and Braid 1998, 113). That is, they make it easier for the story to become detached from one storytelling context and become remembered and told in another. As her favorite story, which she tells often, Carter-Sexton has had many opportunities to develop ways to recontextualize “Lazy Jack” for new audiences. By skillfully adding direct comments to the audience about the story, her past tellings of the story, herself, the characters, and the audience itself, Carter-Sexton situates the story in the immediate context and underscores her own interpretation of the tale.

Before beginning the tale itself, Carter-Sexton tells a tale about the tale, what Barbara Babcock calls a “metanarration,” or “metacommunication” that establishes an “interpretive context” or “frame” within which “the content of the story is to be understood and judged” (1984, 66). Richard Bauman defines metanarration as “those devices that index or comment on the narrative itself (such as its message, generic form and function, and discourse) or on the components or conduct of the storytelling event (including participants, organization, and action)” (Bauman 1986, 98). By letting the audience know that she has told this story at Convo, a Berea College convocation, Carter-Sexton builds her credentials as a storyteller and implies that the story itself must have worth to be told at such an important, ritual occasion. Showing her familiarity with the audience, she names one audience member, Brad, who has heard her tell this tale in another context, at the Upward Bound program. She signals the genre of the story, a Jack tale, by saying twice that she is telling “a story about [End Page 132] Jack.” Much of this opening metanarrative frame establishes her authority as a storyteller whose tales are traditional. Indeed, her references to learning a lot of her stories from her mother and grandfather, growing up in the country and going to a two-room school, and falling “deeper and deeper” into her dialect as she speaks, work as “traditionalization,” the “creation in the present of ties to a meaningful past that is itself constructed in the act of performance” (Bauman and Braid 1998, 112).

One important way that Carter-Sexton recontextualizes the story is through editorializing asides to the audience that provide cultural norms and values with which to judge the characters in the story. When Jack’s mother asks, rhetorically, “La—-w, ain’t I got me a prize,” Carter-Sexton interjects an omniscient judgment: “She was wron—ng. She had her a du—d” (lines 4–6). The audience shows its appreciation of her humorous put-down by laughing. She uses this same formula again in lines 89–91, to contradict Jack’s thought that the girls in Fayette County “ain’t heard of me up here.” She again gets a laugh when she interjects, “He was wron—ng. They had heard of him.” She continues her editorializing judgments by twice repeating “Lazy youngin he wa-s” (line 12) and “ La—w , he was lazy,” (line 30), and after each of these lines, interjecting the metanarrational tag phrase “you know” into examples of his laziness to elicit a dialogic interaction with the audience. Twice Carter-Sexton interjects her judgment that Jack and his lazy wife lack worth by calling him “sorry” in line 32, and both of them “sorry” in line 110. Her tone of voice grows exasperated when they continue to do nothing in the face of imminent danger, and she says twice, “And there they set” (lines 164, 184).

Only once does Carter-Sexton interject a comment about herself, but it establishes her authority as a mother who has already raised a child and sent her out into the world. Right after line 38, “Jack turned eighteen years old,” she says, “Now that there’s the year folks can get rid of you if they wants to. I done got rid of one. [laughter]” Since she herself “got rid” of an adult child, she can use her own actions to lend approval to those of Jack’s mother.

No doubt Carter-Sexton’s most dramatic and compelling recontextualizing technique is her choice to have the cannibalistic Jack attempt to attack an audience member. Her choice of words and actions is symbolic. In lines 266–269, she substitutes the female audience member nearest to her for Jack’s wife and walks up to her in the persona of Jack, saying, “Gimme, gimme, gimme your ha-nd. Gimme your ha—nd.” She reaches for the woman’s folded arm and hand, and the woman gives it to her. Pausing, Carter-Sexton passes judgment on the foolishness of the audience member’s action by saying that Jack’s wife “ wadn’t that foolish. She knew what he was gonna do. ” She admonishes the audience member, shaking her finger at her: “Don’t you do that. Get your hand back over there .” (lines 270–273) [End Page 133]

Breaking the illusion of a proscenium to have Jack interact directly with the spectators has obvious dramatic value. This recontextualizing technique adds force to Carter-Sexton’s enactment of the power of sorry people like Jack to consume and destroy others. The line “Gimme your hand” suggests a marriage proposal, as in “give me your hand in marriage.” But Carter-Sexton warns that to give him one’s hand is foolish, because “ he’s gonna eat her ,” or figuratively speaking, consume the life of whoever gives him her hand. If it is so easy for Jack to manipulate a woman in the audience into giving him her hand, then women must be warned not to be that foolish.

Another important and striking example of metanarrative recontextualization is line 298, “It’s out there folks,” which follows “And he chased her all the way to the edge of the world.” Carter-Sexton’s intense interjection enjoins the audience to look for the metaphysical, symbolic nature of the “edge of the world,” perhaps that psychological state between a known but intolerable past and present, and an unknown and threatening future. If she stays in the present world, Jack will surely devour her, but she can’t “see what was on the other side,” and in jumping off the edge of the world, she risks falling on “cliffs of rocks.” To make a leap of faith is dangerous, but to stay with a man who threatens to consume one’s very being is suicidal.

In order to underscore the wife’s appropriation of attributes and behaviors that are traditionally associated with male gender, in lines 319–321 Carter-Sexton repeats twice that the wife “had built up muscles.” This direct comment to the audience ( “Now folks,” ) emphasizes the contrast between the two characters and the new strength of Jack’s wife. Jack’s spastic, weak movements make him an unlikely candidate to overtake his athletic wife. Her success in jumping and swimming away seems plausible; his demise seems imminent.

Continuing to drive home her message that women must escape from relationships that threaten their survival, Carter-Sexton says in lines 340–343, that “she went to work got her a jo-b folks” and “Didn’t need her no old man ever after that. Made her o-wn way.” These omniscient lines let us know that Jack’s wife is no longer lazy and no longer needs a man for economic support.

The last lines, 343–360, addressed directly to the audience, serve more than just to close the tale. By entertaining the possibility that Jack’s bones might be “a-clackin’ and a-ploppin’” because Jack is “tryin’ to pu—ll hisself back together,” the storyteller unsettles the audience. Although the Jack in the story is dead, the idea of Jack still lives, as does his “mighty” hunger. Jack is still alive as a symbol of a destructive apathy that feeds on itself and that would devour any woman who married him, or any person who got too close. He remains a potent reminder of the “sorry” men that Carter-Sexton has seen in her county. [End Page 134]

Conclusion

In examining the background of “Lazy Jack” and the coding and recontextualizing strategies used by Carter-Sexton, we can appreciate how one Appalachian storyteller gives strength to her female characters. Instead of portraying faceless, forgettable females, as is typical in American-told Jack tales, Carter-Sexton creates strong, memorable female characters and in so doing, comments on the roles of women, as well as the socioeconomic circumstances in Rockcastle County, Kentucky.

Some of the empowerment of the women in “Lazy Jack” is verbally explicit, as in the statement “Didn’t need her no old man ever after that. Made her o-wn way.” But much of this power is implied in the storyteller’s verbal and nonverbal coding strategies, and is reinforced through her recontextualization. Carter-Sexton insists that the changes were made unconsciously, and that they reflect the female story-telling tradition in her family. Since traditional Appalachian culture is noted for its strong gender roles and patriarchal dominance, it makes sense that Carter-Sexton’s mother and grandmother would express their belief in the strength of women through subtle coding strategies, such as appropriation, juxtaposition, and incompetence. Like her grandmother, who “showed by her looks and gestures” that women “weren’t to be pitied,” Carter-Sexton’s females use strong gestures to reveal their true strength. As Lazy Jack’s wife runs away, she gains strength, so that her powerful muscles enable her to sail out over the cliff and avoid the rocks below. In contrast, Jack’s self-cannibalism and apathy have so weakened him that she mimes his run as that of a spastic-looking skeleton. More research on the feminist coding and contextualization strategies used by Appalachian women storytellers will help us understand how they may be countering male hegemony in creative ways.