One Foot in Eden by award-winning New York Times bestselling author Ron Rash is a story surrounding the lives of the residents of the small town of Jocassee, South Carolina . Holland Winchester, a local Korean War veteran and troublemaker in the town, goes missing and his body cannot be found. The novel is separated into sections rather than in the normal order of any other novel. This gives more depth to the story. As the reader delves deeper into the subject, they quickly discover how people's lives intertwine and what they have to do with Holland's disappearance. One Foot in Eden has surely been analyzed by many critics and from very different angles. This is a very captivating Southern Gothic story that is loved by many. Has anyone delved deeper into what Rash was implying when he wrote these characters? Is there a deeper meaning to a person's motivations when doing something at a particular time? Of course there are. There is meaning behind everything. The purpose of this essay is to highlight the psychoanalytic views of two of the main characters: Sheriff Alexander and Billy Holcombe. When psychoanalyzing a character, an analyst will most likely resort to Freudian viewpoints so that they can base their research on the character's actions and how they strive to solve problems. This makes perfect sense because Sigmund Freud was and is, after all, the father of psychoanalysis. Freud strongly believed that what a person does is influenced by situations that occurred in their childhood (Brizee and Tompkins). The first character mentioned is Will Alexander, the high sheriff of Jocassee, South Carolina. Some brief observations about him are that he can easily read people. For example, he knew that Billy immediately lied about not knowing where Holl was... middle of paper ... what happened to him as a child; just like Freud said. One Foot in Eden is a beautiful novel. The way Rash wrote it was very clever; allowing readers to go from confusion to finally understanding why he pieced it together the way he did. Every character in this novel could be psychoanalyzed for days and there would still be a shocking outcome. Will and Billy were the most intriguing. Highlighting the points and explaining what made them do the things they did and how it affected their lives – if so, will hopefully intrigue the reader. After all, no one can hide anything in this city. It is, after all, a place for the lost. Works cited by Brizee, Allen and JC Tompkins. “Psychoanalytic criticism”. Purdue OWL: Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism. Np, June 3, 2013. Web. 016 April 2014.Rash, Ron. One Foot in Eden: a novel. New York, NY: Picador, 2004. Print.