Raney

A detailed Summary of Raney

In his novel Raney, Clyde Edgerton uses humor, sexuality and good diction in the form of arguing to show drastic changes in the character Raney from her previous sheltered life. Changes in Raney show her growth and development of new ideas toward sex, marriage and her own family.

The novel Raney begins with an announcement of the engagement of Raney Bell and Charles Shepherd. Raney is a young white southern girl, not very well educated and stubborn about her own ideas. Charles is a white southern man, very well educated and also stubborn about his ideas. But Raney and Charles don't have all the same ideas, especially about marriage, sex and family.

One of the best tools Edgerton uses in the novel is diction, especially in the form of arguing, which Raney and Charles do all the time throughout the novel. From the very beginning of their marriage they start arguing. Raney thinks Charles is drunk at the wedding and confronts him as soon as they walk down the aisle and outside. Charles denies it and then says he only had a little bit with his close friend that he was in the war with. This isn't a big deal at all but Raney acts like it ruined her wedding.

The next big argument happens on their honeymoon night. After eatin

An argument that wasn't humorous and did hurt their marriage was about family. After Uncle Nate died, Charles said that Nate was severely depressed and obsessive-compulsive and that he needed help. Then he mentioned that maybe Raney's mother could have done something about it before Nate killed himself. Raney took this the wrong way and completely lost it. She said, "Charles I can't live with this! You think Mama murdered Uncle Nate"(153). This argument caused Raney to move out of their house and go live with her Aunt Flossie. This was probably the worst argument that Raney and Charles had, but it was just a start of Raney changing her ideas. Not too long after this argument Raney and Charles both realized that marriage wasn't just of two people, but of two families, and that they would have to get along and respect each other even if they didn't agree on everything. This is another monumental change for Raney because up until now the only thing that mattered to her was her own family and what they had to talk about. Now she realized that Charles didn't like talking about the same things and that he wasn't avoiding her family just because he didn't like the, but because they weren't interesting to talk to all the time.

g room service and having a sip of champagne, which might as well be illegal as far as Raney is concerned, she changes into her negligee, gets into bed and waits for Charles to come in and do his duties. Apparently Charles wanted to do a little more than that bu

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Approximate Word count = 1003
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English