Eudora Welty Her Life And Her Works

Eudora Welty: Her Life And Her Works Essay, Research Paper

Eudora Welty: Her Life and Her Works

Eudora Welty’s writing style and us of theme and setting aided her in

becoming one of the greatest writers of all time. Welty credits her family for

her success. “Without the love and belief my family gave me, I could not have

become a writer to begin with” (Welty, IX). Eudora Welty’s writings are light-

hearted and realistic. Her stories explore common everyday life.

Eudora Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi, on April 13, 1909. She

was an observant child. She was fascinated by sounds and sights, human voices

and the changing of seasons. Welty’s happy childhood and serene life is

reflected in her fiction.

Eudora Welty’s ability to observe created her talent to precisely tell

situations as they would be seen. This talent brings her stories to life. The

in-depth accounts that she writes of jump off of the page and into the readers’

imagination. The descriptive passages in her fiction bring about vibrant images

in the readers’ mind.

The short story “A Memory” opens up with a clear visual image. “The

water shone like steel, motionless except for the feathery curl behind a distant

swimmer. From my position I was looking through a rectangle brightly lit,

actually glaring at me with sun, sand, water, a little pavilion, a few solitary

people in fixed attitudes, and around it all a border of dark rounded oak trees,

like that engraved thunderclouds surrounding illustrations in the

bible”(Welty,75). Welty’s long sentence structure and word usage allows the

reader to feel as though he or she were the one sitting on the beach. This

description helps the reader to be involved in the story. He or she could feel

as though he or she were a part of the story instead of someone only looking in.

As the story progresses, the main character, a young girl incorporates

her crush on a young boy with the sights at the beach. The young boy who barely

knows she exists constantly in her thoughts. “Welty has given, and will

continue to give(For these works are soundly made and will stand) a literature

that reaches great stature in it’s theme of love”(Schlueter, 535). Eudora Welty

captures the feelings of being in love and shows them brilliantly on paper. The

reader immediately empathizes with the young girl who cannot stop thinking of

her young love.

“My love had somehow made me doubly austere in my observation of what

went on about me. Through some intensity I had come almost into a dual life, as

observer and dreamer”(Welty, 76). The young girls ability to see reality is

overtaken by her fantasy of her crush. The child blindly stares about her; she

sees the other bathers partially in a dreamlike state. Welty’s ability to

change from fantasy to reality and past to present is called a confluence. She

uses this technique in this story as well as in many others.

In the short story “Lily Daw and the Three Ladies,” Lily Daw is a

mentally unstable girl. Three women of the town decide to enroll her in the

Ellisville Institute for the feeble minded of Mississippi. The characters in

the story speak as though the story were a stage play. Through this style a

lot is learned about the three women and their personalities.

The character Lilt Daw has had a rough childhood. The three women seem

to act as her guardians.. Lily tells them that she is getting married but they

do not believe her. They convince her that it is best if she goes to the

institute. After Lily has boarded the train to go to Ellisville Institute, one

of the women meet the man who is supposed to marry Lily. The woman who is

shocked that this gentleman exists, runs to the train to get Lily. The other

two women emerge from the train to meet the gentleman. In all of the commotion

one cannot be sure whether or not Lily has gotten off of the train. The story

ends in great uncertainty. The reader cannot be sure whether or not Lily

marries. “Miss Welty revels in working in terms of concious ambiguity, she

leaves the last word unsaid, the ultimate action unconsummated”(Kramer, 327).

Many of Welty’s works end in the same way, she leaves the final thought up to

the reader. The stories do not end in fact but allow the reader to use his or

her imagination.

In the story “The Wide Net,” once again Welty uses the theme love.

William Wallace loves his wife greatly but he decides to go drinking with the

boys and stay out one whole night. To get even with her insensitive husband,

Hazel Wallace writes a suicide note and hides. When William Wallace reads the

note he and his buddies set out to find Hazel’s body in the river. During his

expedition, William fantasizes of his wife and how much he really loves her.

“William Wallace looked down as though he thought of Hazel with the shining eyes,

sitting at home and looking straight before

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