Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of prejudice.

Throughout the novel, readers encounter characters who mistrust authority. This is first apparent in the scorn shown for the WPA. Pa is unwilling to get a WPA job, while R.C. Cole’s prospective father-in-law looks down on the work, and even Loretta refuses to take “government books.” Their distrust of authority is initially presented as a slight annoyance to Cussy Mary, though it is later shown to have its roots in their day-to-day reality.

As the narrative develops, Richardson illustrates the extent to which this distrust is often merited. Authority figures in the book, including Doc and Pastor Vester Frazier, regularly take advantage of those with fewer privileges: the poor, those in rural areas, and people of color. The mining company (“the Company”) also does this, paying unfair wages and mistreating its workers and the land it mines. With these authorities misusing their power in various ways, the vulnerable in the community are the most affected and the most hurt by their actions. The distrust many people have for authority figures, then, has a solid basis in these actions.

However, Cussy Mary provides a new model for authority figures as a representative of the government.