Ecology of a Cracker Childhood

Ray delves into Daddy’s personality, portraying him as possessing a mind both brimming with talent and damaged by mental illness. Ray opens by describing what she sees as Daddy’s “native genius”—his craftiness and ability to fix machines with unusual and unique methods. For instance, Daddy invents a tool for cutting corn off the cob from a metal pipe. He also welds a variety of truck parts together into a structure for supporting grapevines. Such inventiveness with machines, and willingness to recycle from old parts, makes Daddy a “bricoleur” (89), which is a person who sculpts or creates with whatever’s around.

At the same time that Daddy’s mind displays intelligence with machinery, it is also plagued by severe mental illness. The most severe form of Daddy’s mental illness comes on one day when Daddy is at a gun show with his friend, Mr. Paschol. While there, Daddy begins to lose control of his body, as well as hallucinate. Ray and the family later suspect that Mr. Paschol drugged Daddy with LSD, though they are never able to prove it as Mr. Paschol is “never seen or heard from again” (92).

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