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Home , Eudora Welty, Willa Cather

April 13, 1909-July 23, 2001

Winner of the for The Optimist’s Daughter and the for The Collected Stories.

Teaching Southern Women Writers NCTE 2009, Philadelphia, PA Sharon Gerald, Jones County Junior College [email protected] www.teacherlytech.net

Eudora Welty Guggenheim fellowships, and the French Legion of Honor. Born in Jackson, MS in 1909, She published novels, short Welty became one of the stories, photographs, and non- world’s most fiction works ( including her writers. Despite world- autobiography One Writer’s wide attention, she Beginnings that is a must-read for remained in her North anyone wanting to become a Congress Street home, writer). where she was known to open her door to strangers She was a friend and mentor to to sign autographs. She many writers, such as fellow would even offer them a Mississippian and Pulitzer Prize glass of iced tea. She received great critical acclaim winner who is now in her lifetime, winning the one of the literary executors of her People in Jackson still love to tell Pulitzer Prize for The Optimist’s estate. about seeing Miss Welty at the Daughter and The National Book She wrote about her home state, beauty shop or at her favorite Award for her Collected Stories as and in doing so became a true Jitney Jungle. well as two O. Henry prizes, two treasure of American Letters.

1 WRITERS ON WELTY

Richard Bausch Doris Betts Alice Munro I was overwhelmed with a terrible longing...This is my feeling as a It wasn’t until I read Happy Birthday, Miss Welty--tough reader. The writer’s feeling, just as , in 1975, that I under fire, tender enough to turn sharp, is a double one. Gratitude and realized the redemptive quality of weeds into orchids. amazed delight. And utter her writing. That book...literally discouragement. Writing can be called me back from the abyss. this good. It’s been done. Something has been proved here. No use now Richard Bausch is the author trying to prove it again. of numerous novels and collections. He’s won Alice Munro, known as “The both a Pushcart Prize and an Writers on Canadian Chekhov,” is one of O. Henry Prize. He is a the most renowned writers in professor at The University of the world today. Memphis. Welty

I guess the most important element of this great person’s work is charm. It’s in everything she has ever Lee Smith written or done. Doris Betts, Ellen Douglas, My immediate response to Welty’s and Lee Smith are all visit was to read everything she’d ever accomplished Southern written, of course. And it was like Ellen Douglas Women Writers with many that proverbial light bulb clicked on in novels and short stories my head--suddenly, I knew what I The language transformed, raised between them. knew! to a new intensity, the land in which I lived, the people I had heard speak.

Quotes from McHaney, Pearl Amelia, ed. Eudora Welty: Writer's Reflections Upon First Reading Welty. Athens, Georgia: Hill Street, 1999. Print.

2 WELTY ON WRITING

out. from...“The radiance of from...”The House of from...”Looking at ” Short Stories” ” ~The future of fiction is a mystery. It ~Clearly the fact that the stories have is like the future of ourselves. ~There is a quality of animation that plots in common is of no more account ~Never did it escape Jane Austen that seems naturally come by, that seems a than that many people have blue the interesting situations of life can born part of every novel. eyes...The plot is the Why. Why? is take place, an notably do, at home. asked and replied to at various depths; ~There is life in that house, the spirit the fishes in the sea are bigger the she made it for, made it out of; it is all deeper we go. To learn that character one substance: it is her might and her is a more awe-inspiring fish from...”Katherine soul, all together, and it abides. and...one several degrees deeper down Anne Porter: The Eye than situation, we have only to read of the Story” from...”Reality in Chekhov. Chekhov’s Stories” ~The fact is, apparently, that in ~Most good stories are about the pressing to our sense of pleasure, we interior of our lives. have entered into another world. We ~And so reality is no single, pure are speaking of beauty. And beauty is ~Ask what time it is in her stories ray, no beacon against the dark. It not a blatant or promiscuous or and you are certain to get the answer: might be thought of as a cluster of obvious quality; indeed, it is the hour is fateful. lesser lights, visible here on earth like associated with reticence, with the windows of a village at night, stubbornness, of a number of kinds. It close together, but not one--some are arises somehow from a desire not to from...”Writing and bright, some dim, some waywardly comply with what may be expected, Analyzing a Story” flickering. All imply people; there but to act inevitably, as long as are people there for every light. some human truth is in sight... ~For the source of the story is usually lyrical. And all writers speak from from...”Words into Fiction” and speak to, emotions eternally the same in all of us: love, pity, terror do ~Writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading. not show favorites or leave any of us

3 THE LYRICISM OF WELTY

T H E L YRIC To be lyric means to have musical Here’s another excerpt from the same story in quality. In literature the lyric is which Virgie Rainey is swimming in the Big usually associated with poetry, one Black River after her mother’s death. of the oldest literary forms that evolved, if not out of, at least Memory dappled her like no more alongside music itself. Early lyrics than a paler light, which in slight agitations were often set to music just as they came through leaves, not darkening her are today in song. for more than an instant. The iron taste of the old river was sweet to her, though. Lyric poetry is also often personal. If she opened her eyes she looked Many love poems are lyrics, at blue bottles, the skating waterbugs. though the lyric doesn’t have to be If she trembled it was at the smoothness about love so much as about an of a fish or snake that crossed her knees. individual experience of perception and emotion. These lines are of Virgie reminiscing about her piano Lyric qualities are created in teacher, Miss Eckhart: poetry with the help of line breaks, rhythms, and even rhymes. We don’t always speak of those With her hate, with her love, qualities as elements of fiction, but and with the small gnawing feelings some prose is very musical. that ate at them, she offered Virgie Indeed, the lyricism of Eudora her Beethoven. She offered, offered, Welty’s prose is one of its biggest offered—and when Virgie was young, strengths. in the strange wisdom of youth that is accepting of more than is given, Look at some of these excerpts she had accepted the Beethoven, from her work as examples. They as with the dragon’s blood. appear in normal paragraph form in her stories but have been That was the gift she had touched divided with poetic line breaks with her fingers that had drifted and left her. here to emphasize the point.

Lines from “The Wanderers” What are the lyrical qualities in these excepts? Where All was one warmth, air, water, and her own body. All seemed one weight, can you find musical elements like rhythm? Where has one matter—until she put down her head repetition been used to create musicality? How do the and closed her eyes and the light slipped descriptions evoke sounds and/or appeal to the other under her lids, she felt senses? How do Virgie’s emotions come through in this matter a translucent one, these descriptions? the river, herself, the sky all vessels which the sun filled up.

4 EXERCISE IN THE LYRIC

Find a Poem in a Story Exercise Example: Lines from Eudora Welty’s “Livvie,” arranged by Sharon Gerald Read a story by Eudora Welty. Look for poetic lines in the story, This was the way he looked in his clothes, and create your own arrangement F a different and smaller man, holding of those lines as your own “found” his Bible. Like somebody kin to himself. poem. O Try to make your poem express a He was the same to her as if he was dead, general tone, mood, or theme far away in his sleep—small, relentless, found in the story you have U and devout. Outside, the ground selected. scarred in deep whorls, every vestige N of grass patiently uprooted.

Even old men dreamed D about something pretty. Example: Like a commotion in the room, Lines from Eudora Welty’s “The Whistle” the frogs sung out. In Solomon’s face, arranged by Sharon Gerald came an animation that could P play hide and seek, that would dart Sarah’s body was weightless as a strip of cain, and escape, had always escaped. like a vain dream, like the commotion of some O clumsy nodding old bear trying to climb a tree, The mystery flickered in him, heard by nobody at all. Like some sleazy dress invited from his eyes, frightened her that has been worn and worn for many winters E a little, as if he might carry her and always lets the cold through to the bones. with him that way, Like a conversation or a tale. Like openings T when he might be going to die. which have been stretched shapeless and made of no more use. Like a cold, She could be so still she could not pressing hand. Strange, like fright. R hear herself breathe. She did not think Like a bird trying to find its way out of a room. of that, tasting the chicken broth As tiny and still as a seashell, the colors Y on the stove, gently as if not to disturb of green and red, the smell of the sun some whole thing he held round on the ground. in his mind, like a fresh egg.

The moonlight covered everything. Like Now I lay eyes on a young man, a white stone in water, among the stretches Old Solomon far away in his sleep, of deep woods in their colorless dead leaf. walking somewhere where she could Intense and white as the snow that does not fall here. imagine the snow falling.

5 WELTY AS PHOTOGRAPHER RUINS OF WINDSOR

Though Welty is best Churchyards; and Eudora and helping to launch her will see that it is also a known for her writing, Welty as Photographer, as a writer. The photo self-portrait. Welty’s she was also an accomplished photographer who began her career taking pictures for the WPA. During the 1930s, she documented the realities of the through Mississippi, , and other places. Her photographs are among others. She shown above, “Ruins of shadow appears in the available today in her credited her photography Windsor,” is one of her scene. How else is books One Time, One for giving her an eye for better known pieces. shadow used to create a Place; Country framing a scene in a story Look closely, and you particular effect?

6 IMAGE AS STORY EXERCISE

Part I. Reflection 2. How are these details important 6. Freewrite on the story you to the visual composition of the believe the picture is telling. 1. What’s happening in this image? You could write your idea in picture? Quickly jot down your story form or just as random initial understanding of what 3. List things you imagine to be observations and reflections. you see. true based on what you see in the picture. Try to think of at 2. What mood does the picture least five. evoke? What do you feel when you see it? 4. What visual cues are in the photograph to lead you to your assumptions? Pictured Above: Part II. Brainstorming 5. Draw something you think “Girl on Porch” by Eudora 1. List at least five details you spot might be happening just outside Welty. in the image. of the frame of this photo.

7 IMAGE AS STORY CONTINUED...

P A R T IV. I NVESTIGATION particular era such as the Great context, such as the American Depression. As the last entry, South during the Great 1. Who is the photographer? the one that would show up at Depression. Incorporate What’s interesting or important the top of the blog, write an photographs into your to about her? introduction to the collection as help illustrate your definitions 2. Where and when was the a whole. and explanations. photograph taken? What’s 6. Write your own short story 13. Draw your own illustrations significant about the time and using one or more of Welty’s for a Welty short story, telling place in which it was taken? photographs as a prompt. the story in visual form. Scan Do we need to know that to your illustrations into digital understand the photograph? 7. Write your own poem or form and put them together as a sequence of poems using one or 3. What cultural or political slide show presentation. more of Welty’s photographs as background information might a prompt. 14. If drawing is a problem for help us understand the you, find pictures in magazines photograph and/or gain a 8. Write a song using one or more or online that you can cut out or more complete story from it? of Welty’s photographs as a print out. Draw storyboard prompt. P A R T V. W RITING AND panels out on a piece of P ROJECT IDEAS 9. Use MovieMaker or iMovie to presentation board, and use the create a photo-story using the board to create a photo-story 1. Write an analytical essay about work of a favorite photographer. version of one of Welty’s short the artistic composition of the Create a voice narrative to stories. photograph. record with your photo 2. Find a book of Welty’s sequence. photography and write a 10. Create your own photo project review of the book as a whole. based on what you believe TOPIC FOR 3. Write a personal reflection Welty would be photographing INVESTIGATION essay in response to one or if she were continuing her work more of Welty’s photographs. today. Write an introduction to Photographs are your work explaining your 4. Interview a person who lived composed by and can be choices. Write descriptions to through the Great Depression. studied by certain go with individual photographs. Take along copies of some of elements of visual design, Welty’s Depression-Era photos 11. Read some of Welty’s fiction such as line, color, texture, and use them as prompts to set during the Great Depression. balance, and so forth. encourage the person to tell Write an essay comparing the Before working on your about his or her own fiction to the photographs. project do a basic web experiences. Write an essay What elements of visual search for visual summarizing and responding composition do the two art composition, elements of to what you learn in your forms have in common? photography, or visual interview. design to learn more. 12. Write an essay that defines a 5. Create a photo-blog in which concept (poverty, racism, you collect and write responses culture, etc) within a particular to photographs from a

8 READING WELTY’S SHORT STORIES

W H Y I L I V E AT T H E P.O. I D E A S F O R W RITING through this conversation? How would the story be T OPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Write an essay based on one of different if it actually moved the discussion topics above. 1. Look through this story for outside the beauty parlor? places where the word “smart” 2. Write the story from Stella 4. Gossip is a mainstay in Leota’s is used. How much stake do the Rhondo’s point of view. beauty parlor. What function sisters have in defining 3. Write a story with the same does the gossip have? What themselves as smart? How characters set twenty years in consequences does it have? Are many times do they try to the future. there positive elements to the outsmart each other? To what gossip? end? 5. Mrs. Fletcher implies that as 2. One of the most memorable long as no one knows about her parts of this story is the Reading Welty pregnancy she isn’t committed speaking voice. How is the The four stories addressed in to going through with it. That’s sound of the narrator’s voice this section are from Eudora a very bold statement for 1939, created? Go through the story Welty’s Curtain of Green and the year “The Petrified Man” and identify phrases and th Other Stories (1941). They also was first copyrighted. Is this a expressions that lend appear in Welty’s Thirteen radical feminist story? personality to the narrator. Stories as well as her Collected I D E A S F O R W RITING 3. “Why I Live at the P.O” Stories. appeared in the short story 1. Write an essay based on one of collection , the discussion topics above. published in 1941. While it 2. Research 1930’s beauty trends, doesn’t focus on race issues, and put together a presentation certainly it deals with them. T H E P E T R I F I E D M AN about them with references to What picture do we have of race T OPICS FOR DISCUSSION this story. relations in this small Southern town from this story? How do 1. How much of this story is about 3. Write your own story set in a you imagine the story might be gender politics, or power plays beauty parlor. different if it were written between men and women? P OWERHOUSE today? Look for places in the story where the idea of female control T OPICS FOR DISCUSSION 4. How many times is food in a marriage is mentioned. mentioned in “Why I Live at the 1. How many ways does P.O.”? How important is food to 2. Humor is often used in fiction Powerhouse communicate? the story? (and even in life) to deflect from Words, numbers, gestures, or diffuse emotional situations. sounds, notes? Look through 5. What does living at the P.O. How is humor used in this the story for as many ways as represent to the narrator? What story? you can find through which the does she accomplish by moving musician conveys meaning. out of her family home? 3. “The Petrified Man” primarily takes place as a conversation 2. How many of the details of the between two women. How death of Powerhouse’s wife many other scenes are conveyed come only from his own

9 READING WELTY’S SHORT STORIES

imagination? What’s real and A W ORN P ATH I D E A S F O R W RITING what’s merely imagined or T OPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Write an essay based on one of perceived? the discussion topics above. 1. Welty once wrote an essay 3. What’s the emotional impact of responding to the question, “Is 2. Write your own short story the way Powerhouse tells about Phoenix Jackson’s Grandson describing a journey in great the telegram announcing his Really Dead?” She said detail. wife’s death? How do his students kept writing to her to friends react? How does the 3. Write a song based on Phoenix ask. Her answer? It doesn’t way he tells it change the story? Jackson’s walk. matter. The story is told from 4. This story takes place in the Phoenix’s point of view, and as 1930s. How much does the long as she believes him to be racial divide between the alive, the story wouldn’t change OVERVIEW musicians and their audience either way. What do you think? • What are your general matter to the telling of the story? 2. “” often appears in impressions of Welty’s Look for instances in the story textbooks as an example of writing style after where race is mentioned and descriptive writing. What reading several of her instances where racial makes this story so exemplary? stories? perceptions are at least implied. Look through the story to pick • What themes or conflicts I D E A S F O R W RITING out examples of effective can you find carrying description. What techniques over from one story to 1. Write an essay based on one of are used? How can you borrow another? the discussion topics above. from these techniques in your • How would you 2. Research 1930s jazz musicians own writing? characterize Welty’s and put together a presentation 3. What is a phoenix in Greek approach to gender and on them that includes references mythology? What symbolic race issues in her early to this story. value might Phoenix Jackson’s work based on the four 3. Go to a musical performance name have? stories covered here? and watch a particular musician • Two things people often 4. Phoenix experiences a few at work. Write descriptions of talk about related to instances when her mental that musician and create your Welty are place and awareness is called into own story about what might be voice. How does she question. How important is this happening in the emotional create a sense of each in to the story? How does it affect background of the performance. her fiction? your view of her?

This document was created by Sharon Gerald. It is available for download on www.teacherlytech.net under the category Handouts. Teachers are welcome to print and distribute to students or to share for any non-commercial purpose with attribution.

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