This play set in North Carolina in the late 1800s (nineteenth century) or early 1900s
(twentieth century) is characterized
by some as a folk drama. It is hard to characterize it
otherwise -- there are deaths in the most tragic circumstances, yet the two main characters,
Hardy and Rhoda, live, and their love triumphs in the end. It is, in a certain sense, a play
of ideas; yet this never really obtrudes on the action. It (the conflict of various
attitudes toward
religion, God, Life, nature, and man, and his place and purpose in the
universe) forms the nature and essence of the play, yet arises, and is discussed or
reflected on, so naturally, that it never seems anything but the
natural expression in the
face of time, place, and circumstance.
Hardy and Etta Granville are living on a good-sized Southern farm. Etta is ill, and her
niece, Rhoda, is coming to live there and help out, since she is an orphan now. She comes,
and she and Hardy fall in love. Etta is furious, but she dies shortly thereafter of natural
causes, with a curse for them on her lips. After a decent time, they marry; but the church
people suspect him of murder, and call their relationship "harlotry." They come to pray and
call on him to confess, convert, and be "saved." He refuses, but they get her to leave
overnight. He is hurt; she is devastated. His Aunt Meg (who has been a like a mother to him)
comes to believe in him, and them, and their love, which they say. once they are reunited,
will not let them part again.