SUMMARY
The Great Meadow (1930) is a historical novel by the Kentucky-born writer Elizabeth Madox Roberts (1881–1941). Set in the years between 1774 and 1781, it tells the story of Diony Hall, who migrates from Virginia to Kentucky, which was known as the “great meadow.” Hall and her husband, Berk Jarvis, are inspired to move to Kentucky when they hear a speech by Daniel Boone in Virginia. Once there, however, Berk leaves Diony to seek revenge against Indians who attacked his family, and when he fails to return, Diony remarries.
Diony Hall’s life signifies the geographical and social tension between a Kentucky mountain spirit and a Virginia aristocratic sensibility. Her trajectory mirrors the westward expansion from Virginia prevalent late in the 1700s and echoes many of Roberts’s family stories of Kentucky settlers. The migration also approximates a woman’s emotional and intellectual search for self, a theme often addressed by Roberts. In many ways, Diony Hall is emblematic of Roberts’s protagonists, heroines who confront and overcome financial and emotional obstacles, ultimately resolving them through their own strength of spirit and an awareness of the importance of inner knowledge.