Strangers in Strang Knob

The theme of a small town family runs rampant throughout Fenton Johnson's scissors, paper, rock. The Hardins are the close-knit family from Strang Knob, Kentucky who Johnson uses throughout the book to tell stories of living a life in a small southern town trying to remember the past and accept the future. Tom Hardin is one of the main characters in the book, a husband to Rose Ella, and a father to seven children. Tom Hardin is as manly as they come and spent most of his life fox hunting and working at the local whiskey-making distillery, much like Fenton Johnson, who was apart of an Appalachian whiskey-making family himself (Clark). His wife, Rose Ella Hardin, is the quiet glue that holds this family together. Raphael, Rose Ella and Tom's youngest son, is the other character most concentrated on throughout scissors, paper, rock, and obviously the character based off of Fenton Johnsonhimself. Raphael is a 36 year-old gay man living in San Francisco, who, throughout the book, is struggling to get to know his father. Elizabeth Hardin is Raphael's closest sibling, an ex-cheerleader living in California hoping to make it big in movies but working with real estate for the time being. Clark Hardin (son) suddenly dies at the young age of 20 in the war, almost killing his mother, Rose Ella. Joe Hardin (son) is an alcoholic unhappy with his marriage, his life, and suffering with issues concerning women, much like his father. Barbara, Leslie, and Robert Hardin are barely mentioned at all through the story.

Aside from the family, there is a neighbor who seems to be the only living proof in Strang Knob that the Hardin's ever existed: Camilla Perkins. Camilla and the Hardins are neighbors in the small town and although she lives a life of loneliness, she becomes extremely close with both of the main characters, Tom and Raphael, as death draws closer for all of them. (Johnson 1-18) There are many different characters throughout the book because the family is so large, but each chapter is a different story told from a different point of view from almost all of the members of the family, including Camilla. Although the Hardins are a large family with small town values, the family does not really know each other very well at all, especially the characters who are most alike, Tom and Raphael.

Throughout the book, there is a constant struggle between Raphael and his father Tom. Neither of them knows much about the other, but in all actuality they are a lot alike. Raphael battles with his secret of being gay by running away from small town family tradition in Strang Knob to San Francisco. In the same sense, Tom Hardin often escapes from having to do anything involving his family by escaping to his woodshop where he spends almost all of his time throughout the story. Because Raphael often comes home (home being Strang Knob) every year with a male companion, his parents both know he is gay but are unwilling to accept it. In the first chapter of scissors, paper, rock, Johnson begins to show the tension between Raphael and his father, even though both are so close to death and still unaware of how important it is to know one another.

All through his childhood Raphael never set foot in the shop except under threat of a whipping. Now he wants to look on. It is this, the changing of things that angers Tom Hardin. For all their lives he and Raphael have hardly spoken to each other except to snap and back off. When circumstances forced them to speak on any subject of consequence, they found themselves brought to some cliff, over whose edge lay a fact of Raphael's life for which Tom Hardin had no words and about which Raphael seemed eager to keep silence. (Johnson 3-4)

Here, it seems that both are equally willing to stay as far away (emotionally) to each other as they can. This is probably fear, on both of their parts. Tom Hardin is afraid of something different, something that is not Strang Knob, but something that is San Francisco and homosexual. Raphael is afraid of the small town values his father has and the unspoken disapproval Tom Hardin has for him.

Fenton Johnson uses the themes of rural and city living in his book scissors, paper, rock to express the
struggles he experienced in his life and makes them into a story. Fenton Johnson brings [his] real life stories to life and gives truth to them throughout this book and because of this, I give Johnson's scissor, paper, rock three stars. On Johnson's webpage in his biography he says, "I believe that truth resides not in facts but in the stories we assemble from them, and that the best stories embody and give voice to the most essential truths." (Fenton Johnson Homepage) Maybe what Johnson means by this is that when we share stories with one another, we gain truth and knowledge, in a sense, without even saying it at all. It is the history we have with one another that brings us closer and ties us together, and it is the history with Tom Hardin and Raphael Hardin that ultimately brings them close (in the same house, in the same small town) at the end of scissors, paper, rock.