My heart and my flesh ...

The story of a woman of the Kentucky gentility named Theodosia, driven to the brink of madness and courageously facing the decay of life about her, relinquishing life herself and then recovering it in closer touch with nature. Despite the subject matter, it is a lovely, lyrical treatment of that region's rural life. In the process of the story, Theodosia discovers her mullato relatives and shares in their hatred of their white oppressors. In the end she becomes a schoolteacher, finds peace in her bucolic locale, and comes to love a simple farmer. --www.enotes.com et al.