Eudora Welty EXPOSING AMERICA TO THE SOUTH The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty Nadia Diamond

Eudora Welty: A Southern Writer  nmag.com/multimedia /videos/The- Photography-of- Eudora-Welty.html  om/watch?v=W2fh37 fzsOg

Welty’s Photographs

- What do the behavior and clothing of the subjects of Welty’s pictures tell audiences about Southern life in general? - Why do you think Welty chose to photograph the people she did? - What about the scenery of the photographs and the faces of the subjects gives a unique perspective of life in Mississippi in the 1930’s? Video and Picture Follow Up Questions

Grabber  I was exercising as early as then the turn of mind, the nature of temperament, of a privileged observer... A conscious act grew out of this by the time I began to write stories: getting my distance, a prerequisite of my understanding of human events, is the way I begin work. (One Writer’s Beginnings 21) \\

Theses  Welty’s distinctive literary voice, stemming from the unique lens through which she views the South, allows her to craft novels containing beautiful prose, as well as fantastical short stories that maintain their organic quality. Eudora Welty used her youth, family, and adult experiences living in Jackson, Mississippi, as well as the various places and people she photographed as she traveled throughout Mississippi, as inspirations for her stories.  Without her attentive eye and informal, self-appointed role as a “privileged observer”, Welty could not have transformed seemingly ordinary parts of life and turned them into masterfully written works of fiction that have not only stood the test of time, but are also worthy of permanent inclusion in the American literary canon. AB

Insight Into the Human Condition Literary example #1: ‘When Livvie married, her husband were already somebody. He had paid great cost for his land. He spread sycamore leaves over the ground from wagon to door, day he brought her home, so her foot would not have to touch ground. He carried her through his door. Then he growed old and could not lift her, and she were still young.’ (The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty )

Literary example #2  “Snowdie grieved for him, but the decent way you’d grieve for the dead, more like, and nobody wanted to think, around her, that he treated her that way. But how long can you humor the humored? Well, always. But I could almost bring myself to talk about it – to a passer-by, that will never see her again, or me either” (The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty 263).

Literary example #3 “Then stories began to be told of what Miss Eckhart had really done to her old mother. People said the old mother had been in pain for years, and nobody was told... Some people said Miss Eckhart killed her mother with opium.” (The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty, 307)

Critical quote #1 “Human beings must always dream of what they need but will never accomplish. The dream is always more important than ‘ponderous realities.’ Irony is the defense of the rational mind. Compassion is the response of the heart; for no matter how unfit man is for living in his dreams, his need for them is vital” (Howell 460).

Critical quote #2 “[Welty's] people know or care little about what goes on in the world beyond, but they know each other, are functionally connected with each other and the place they live in, and from these associations have learned a great deal about how to live” (Howell 458).

Why Eudora Welty? Likes/Dislikes? Formal study or IRA? AP Lit AP? Conclusion Insights? (Calvino)(no procrast) Enhanced/detracted from love of lit?