Eudora Welty | |
|---|---|
 Eudora Welty in 1962 | |
| Born | Eudora Alice Welty (1909-04-13)April 13, 1909 Jackson, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Died | July 23, 2001(2001-07-23) (aged 92) Jackson, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Occupation | Author, photographer |
| Education | Mississippi University for Women University of Wisconsin, Madison (BA) Columbia University (MA) |
| Notable works | |
| Notable awards | |
Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American short-story writer, novelist, and photographer who wrote about theAmerican South. Her novelThe Optimist's Daughter won thePulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numerous awards, including thePresidential Medal of Freedom and theOrder of the South. She was the first living author to have her works published by theLibrary of America.Her house inJackson, Mississippi, has been designated as aNational Historic Landmark and is open to the public as a house museum.
Eudora Welty was born inJackson, Mississippi, on April 13, 1909, the daughter of Christian Webb Welty (1879 – 1931) and Mary Chestina (Andrews) Welty (1883 – 1966). She grew up with younger brothers Edward Jefferson and Walter Andrews.[1] Her mother was a schoolteacher. Her family were members of theMethodist church.[2] Her childhood home is still standing and was listed on theNational Register of Historic Places in 1980 prior to being delisted in 1986 because a dormer and deck were added to the roof.[3]
Welty soon developed a love of reading, reinforced by her mother, who believed that "any room in our house, at any time in the day, was there to read in, or to be read to."[4] Her father, who worked as an insurance executive, was intrigued by gadgets and machines and inspired in Welty a love of mechanical things. She later used technology for symbolism in her stories and also became an avid photographer, like her father.[5]
She attendedCentral High School in Jackson.[6] Near the time of her high-school graduation, Welty moved with her family to a house built for them at 1119 Pinehurst Street, which remained her permanent address until her death.Wyatt C. Hedrick designed the Weltys' Tudor Revival-style home, which is now known as theEudora Welty House and Garden.[7]
Welty studied at theMississippi State College for Women from 1925 to 1927, then transferred to theUniversity of Wisconsin to complete her studies in English literature. At the suggestion of her father, she studied advertising atColumbia University. Having graduated during theGreat Depression, she struggled to find work in New York.
Soon after Welty returned to Jackson in 1931, her father died ofleukemia. She took a job at a local radio station and wrote as a correspondent about Jackson society for theMemphis newspaperThe Commercial Appeal.[8][9] In 1933, she began work for theWorks Progress Administration. As a publicity agent, she collected stories, conducted interviews, and took photographs of daily life in Mississippi. She gained a wider view of Southern life and relationships; she would later draw from these experiences for her short stories.[10] During this time she also held meetings with fellow writers and friends in her house, forming a group she called the Night-Blooming Cereus Club. Three years later, she left her job to become a full-time writer.[5]
In 1936, she published "The Death of a Traveling Salesman" in the literary magazineManuscript, and soon published stories in other notable publications includingThe Sewanee Review andThe New Yorker.[11] She strengthened her place as an influential Southern writer with the publication of her first book of short stories,A Curtain of Green. Her newfound success won her a seat on the staff ofThe New York Times Book Review as well as theGuggenheim Fellowship, which enabled her to travel to France, England, Ireland, and Germany.[12] While abroad, she spent some time as a resident lecturer at theUniversity of Oxford and theUniversity of Cambridge She was the first woman to be permitted into the hall ofPeterhouse College.[13] In 1960, she returned to Jackson to care for her elderly mother and two brothers.[14]
After the field secretary of theNAACP in MississippiMedgar Evers was assassinated, she published a story inThe New Yorker, "Where Is the Voice Coming From?", from the first-person perspective as the assassin.
In 1971, she published a collection of her photographs depicting the Great Depression, titledOne Time, One Place. Two years later, she received thePulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novelThe Optimist's Daughter.[12][15] She lectured atHarvard University and eventually adapted her talks as a three-part memoir titledOne Writer's Beginnings.[5][16] Throughout the 1970s, Welty carried on a lengthy correspondence with novelistRoss Macdonald, creator of theLew Archer series of detective novels.[17][18]
She continued to live in her family house in Jackson until her death from natural causes on July 23, 2001.[19] She is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson. Her headstone has a quote fromThe Optimist's Daughter: "For her life, any life, she had to believe, was nothing but the continuity of its love."[20]
While Welty worked as a publicity agent for theWorks Progress Administration, she took photographs of people from all economic and social classes in her spare time. Her photographs from the 1930s focused on Mississippi's rural poor and the effects of the Great Depression.[21] Collections of her photographs were published asOne Time, One Place (1971) andPhotographs (1989). Her photographs inspired several of her short stories, including "Why I Live at the P.O.", which was centered on a woman she photographed ironing in the back of a small post office. Although focused on her writing, Welty continued to take photographs until the 1950s.[22]
Welty's first short story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman", was published in 1936. In May 1940 the literary agentDiarmuid Russell wrote to her, "John Woodburn of Doubleday's has suggested that I write to you to see if you might need the service of an agent. I suppose you know the parasitic way an agent works taking 10% of the author's takings. He is rather a benevolent parasite because authors as a rule make more when they have an agent than they do without one." Welty accepted Russell's offer; he represented her and was her friend for many years.[23]
Her work attracted the attention of authorKatherine Anne Porter, who became a mentor to her and wrote the foreword to Welty's first collection of short stories,A Curtain of Green, in 1941. The book established Welty as one of American literature's leading lights and featured the stories "Why I Live at the P.O.", "Petrified Man", and the frequently anthologized "A Worn Path". Excited by the printing of Welty's works in publications such asThe Atlantic Monthly, theJunior League of Jackson of which Welty was a member requested permission from the publishers to reprint some of her works. She eventually published over forty short stories, five novels, three works of non-fiction, and one children's book.
The short story "Why I Live at the P.O." was published in 1941 along with two others inThe Atlantic Monthly.[24] It was republished later that year in Welty's first collection of short stories,A Curtain of Green. "A Worn Path" was also published inThe Atlantic Monthly andA Curtain of Green. It is seen as one of Welty's finest short stories, winning the second-placeO. Henry Award in 1941.[25]
Welty's debut novel,The Robber Bridegroom (1942), deviated from her previous psychologically inclined works, presenting static, fairy-tale characters. Some critics suggest that she worried about "encroaching on the turf of the male literary giant to the north of her in Oxford, Mississippi—William Faulkner",[26] and therefore wrote in a fairy-tale style instead of a historical one. Most critics and readers saw it as a modern Southern fairy-tale and noted that it employs themes and characters reminiscent of theGrimm Brothers' works.[27]
Immediately after the murder ofMedgar Evers in 1963, Welty wroteWhere Is the Voice Coming From?. As she later said, she wondered: "Whoever the murderer is, I know him: not his identity, but his coming about, in this time and place. That is, I ought to have learned by now, from here, what such a man, intent on such a deed, had going on in his mind. I wrote his story—my fiction—in the first person: about that character's point of view".[28] Welty's story was published inThe New Yorker soon afterByron De La Beckwith's arrest.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction,The Optimist's Daughter (1972) is believed by some to be Welty's best novel. It was written at a much later date than the bulk of her work. As poetHoward Moss wrote inThe New York Times, the book is "a miracle of compression, the kind of book, small in scope but profound in its implications, that rewards a lifetime of work". The plot focuses on family struggles when the daughter and the second wife of a judge confront each other in the limited confines of a hospital room while the judge undergoes eye surgery.
Welty gave a series of addresses at Harvard University, revised and published asOne Writer's Beginnings (Harvard, 1983). It was the first book published byHarvard University Press to be a New York Times Best Seller (at least 32 weeks on the list), and runner-up for the 1984National Book Award for Nonfiction.[16][29]
In 1992, she was awarded theRea Award for the Short Story for her lifetime contributions to the American short story. Welty was a charter member of theFellowship of Southern Writers, founded in 1987. She also taught creative writing at colleges and in workshops. She lived near Jackson'sBelhaven College and was a common sight among the people of her home town.
Welty personally influenced several youngMississippi writers in their careers includingRichard Ford,[30][31]Ellen Gilchrist,[32] andElizabeth Spencer.[33]
"There is no wonder that a passion for independence sprang up in me at the earliest age. It took me a long time to manage the independence, for I loved those who protected me—and I wanted inevitably to protect them back. I have never managed to handle the guilt. In the act and the course of writing stories, these are two of the springs, one bright, one dark, that feed the stream."—Eudora Welty,One Writer's Beginnings (1984).[34]
Welty was a prolific writer who created stories in multiple genres. Throughout her writing are the recurring themes of the paradox of human relationships, the importance of place (a recurring theme in most Southern writing), and the importance of mythological influences that help shape the theme.[citation needed]
Welty said that her interest in the relationships between individuals and their communities stemmed from her natural abilities as an observer.[35] Perhaps the best examples can be found within the short stories inA Curtain of Green. "Why I Live at the P.O." comically illustrates the conflict between Sister and her immediate community, her family. This particular story uses lack of proper communication to highlight the underlying theme of the paradox of human connection. Another example is Miss Eckhart ofThe Golden Apples, who is considered an outsider in her town. Welty shows that this piano teacher's independent lifestyle allows her to follow her passions, but also highlights Miss Eckhart's longing to start a family and to be seen by the community as someone who belongs in Morgana.[5] Her stories are often characterized by the struggle to retain identity while keeping community relationships.
Place is vitally important to Welty. She believed that place is what makes fiction seem real, because with place come customs, feelings, and associations. Place answers the questions, "What happened? Who's here? Who's coming?" Place is a prompt to memory; thus the human mind is what makes place significant. This is the job of the storyteller. "A Worn Path" is one short story that proves how place shapes how a story is perceived. Within the tale, the main character, Phoenix, must fight to overcome the barriers within the vividly described Southern landscape as she makes her trek to the nearest town. "The Wide Net" is another of Welty's short stories that uses place to define mood and plot. The river in the story is viewed differently by each character. Some see it as a food source, others see it as deadly, and some see it as a sign that "the outside world is full of endurance".[36]
Welty is noted for using mythology to connect her specific characters and locations to universal truths and themes. Examples can be found within the short story "A Worn Path", the novelDelta Wedding, and the collection of short storiesThe Golden Apples. In "A Worn Path", the character Phoenix has much in common with the mythical bird. Phoenixes are said to be red and gold and are known for their endurance and dignity. Phoenix, the old Black woman, is described as being clad in a red handkerchief with undertones of gold and is noble and enduring in her difficult quest for the medicine to save her grandson. In "Death of a Traveling Salesman", the husband is given characteristics common toPrometheus. He comes home after bringing fire to his boss and is full of male libido and physical strength. Welty also refers to the figure ofMedusa, who in "Petrified Man" and other stories is used to represent powerful or vulgar women.
Locations can also allude to mythology, as Welty proves in her novelDelta Wedding. As Professor Veronica Makowsky from the University of Connecticut writes, the setting of the Mississippi Delta has "suggestions of the goddess of love,Aphrodite orVenus-shells like that upon which Venus rose from the sea and female genitalia, as in themound of Venus and Delta of Venus".[37] The titleThe Golden Apples refers to the difference between people who seek silver apples and those who seek golden apples. It is drawn fromW. B. Yeats' poem "The Song of Wandering Aengus", which ends "The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun". It also refers to myths of a golden apple being awarded after a contest. Welty used the symbol to illuminate the two types of attitudes her characters could take about life.[38]
| Title | Publication | Collected in |
|---|---|---|
| "Death of a Traveling Salesman" | Manuscript (May 1936) | A Curtain of Green |
| "The Doll" | The Tanager (June 1936) | - |
| "Lily Daw and the Three Ladies" | Prairie Schooner (Winter 1937) | A Curtain of Green |
| "Retreat" | River (March 1937) | - |
| "A Piece of News" | The Southern Review (Summer 1937) | A Curtain of Green |
| "Flowers for Marjorie" | Prairie Schooner (Summer 1937) | |
| "A Memory" | The Southern Review (Fall 1937) | |
| "Old Mr. Marblehall" a.k.a. "Old Mr. Grenada" | The Southern Review (Spring 1938) | |
| "The Whistle" | Prairie Schooner (Fall 1938) | |
| "A Curtain of Green" | The Southern Review (Fall 1938) | |
| "Magic" | Manuscript (September 1938) | - |
| "Petrified Man" | The Southern Review (Spring 1939) | A Curtain of Green |
| "The Hitch-Hikers" | The Southern Review (Fall 1939) | |
| "Keela, the Outcast Indian Maiden" | New Directions in Prose & Poetry (1940) | |
| "A Worn Path" | The Atlantic (February 1941) | |
| "Why I Live at the P.O." | The Atlantic (April 1941) | |
| "A Visit of Charity" | Decision, A Review of Free Culture (June 1941) | |
| "Powerhouse" | The Atlantic (June 1941) | |
| "Clytie" | The Southern Review (Summer 1941) | |
| "The Key" | Harper's Bazaar (August 1941) | |
| "The Purple Hat" | Harper's Bazaar (November 1941) | The Wide Net and Other Stories |
| "First Love" | Harper's Bazaar (February 1942) | |
| "A Still Moment" | American Prefaces (Spring 1942) | |
| "The Wide Net" | Harper's Magazine (May 1942) | |
| "The Winds" | Harper's Bazaar (August 1942) | |
| "Asphodel" | The Yale Review (September 1942) | |
| "Livvie" a.k.a. "Livvie Is Back" | The Atlantic Monthly (November 1942) | |
| "At the Landing" | Tomorrow (April 1943) | |
| "A Sketching Trip" | The Atlantic (June 1945) | - |
| "The Whole World Knows" | Harper's Bazaar (March 1947) | The Golden Apples |
| "Hello and Good-Bye" | The Atlantic (July 1947) | - |
| "June Recital" a.k.a. "Golden Apples" | Harper's Bazaar (September 1947) | The Golden Apples |
| "Shower of Gold" | The Atlantic (May 1948) | |
| "Music from Spain" | Music From Spain, pub. June 1948 | |
| "The Wanderers" a.k.a. "The Hummingbirds" | Harper's Bazaar (March 1949) | |
| "Sir Rabbit" | The Hudson Review (Spring 1949) | |
| "Moon Lake" | The Sewanee Review (Summer 1949) | |
| "Circe" a.k.a. "Put Me in the Sky!" | Accent (Fall 1949) | The Bride of the Innisfallen and Other Stories |
| "The Burning " | Harper's Bazaar (March 1951) | |
| "The Bride of the Innisfallen" | The New Yorker (December 1, 1951) | |
| "No Place for You, My Love" | The New Yorker (September 20, 1952) | |
| "Kin" | The New Yorker (November 15, 1952) | |
| "Ladies in Spring" a.k.a. "Spring" | The Sewanee Review (Winter 1954) | |
| "Going to Naples" | Harper's Bazaar (July 1954) | |
| "Where Is the Voice Coming From?" | The New Yorker (July 6, 1963) | The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty |
| "The Demonstrators" | The New Yorker (November 26, 1966) | |
| "Acrobats in a Park" | Delta (November 1977) | - |
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