Southern Influences in the Writing of Eudora Welty - Essay Example

Southern Influences in the writing of Eudora Welty Introduction Writing is an art just like any other and therefore provides writers with the opportunity to represent their societies. Authors and poets use their writing genius to criticize and represent issues in their societies by developing effective themes in their works. As such, the locality of a writer influences his or her works. Eudora Alice Welty is a revered American writer who specialized in writing short stories. Most of her works provide artistic and critical analysis of the issues affecting her society. She does so in most of her works by addressing the social issues that she encountered in her society (Carson 88). She sets most of her stories in American South, where she grew up, thereby reflecting on the region’s culture and language as the discussion below portrays. Eudora Welty was a daughter to two teachers and lived in Mississippi all her life. Her lifestyle and life in the South influences her work most of which address issues synonymous to the Southern societies. Her lifestyle as a daughter to two teachers helped develop her interest in literary works. Her parents took her through school thereby ensuring that she acquired the prerequisite literary knowledge that would later help develop her into a model author and novelist. The society influenced her works in a number of ways. Firstly, her initial works targeted the local population as her primary audience. As such, she developed most of such works systematically often striving to present and criticize the local issues of the small town of Mississippi. As she grew and began targeting the nation and the global audience, she maintained her unique way of writing a feature that portrays the long-term Southern influences in her writings. Key among the Southern influences in the works of Eudora Welty is evident in her artistic conventions, style and form. Most of her works adopt an oral tradition approach, as was the case with the Southern literary and artistic norm. She developed a number of works including a collection of short stories entitled A Curtain of Green with the oral tradition technique. Welty learned, worked alongside and often collaborated with her southern compatriot William Faulkner. Most of Faulkner’s works have a similar artistic convention. The convention appealed to the locals, it was therefore the best way of positioning the works of Southern artists in order to make them endear to the original target audience. Additionally, Welty strives to permit her characters reproduce the rhythms of their varied southern dialects. In most of her works, the author develops strategic characters, which she describes vividly thereby apportioning the characters respective roles that enable them to present the intricate features of the south. Dialogue is an overriding feature the author uses in most of her works. This way, she succeeds in developing appropriate plots and conflicts with the characters developing the conflicts among themselves. In doing this, the cadences of southern dialects arise naturally in the plots. As explained earlier, Welt often gave her characters adequate insight a feature that makes her audience “hear” the characters talk. Such was a conspicuous feature in most of William Faulkner’s works thereby portraying the extent of the influence in a number of southern writers. Welty’s works portray a degree of grotesque that most critics of her works claim are comical. However, the grotesque is yet another integral feature of the south. The comical extent of her portrayal of the issues affecting the societies arises from her observant personality coupled with the fact that artists and writers use their arts to criticize ad represent features they observe in their societies. In such short stories as A Curtain of Green in which she develops a conflict between a sister and her family and community, Welty develops an arguably comical yet grotesque conflict among the characters. This way, the author shows the extent of such cultural features in the southern societies. Additionally, the short story portrays the local dialects as the author uses poor communication strategies and abilities among the characters to present the extent of the conflict. This shows the extent of the influences of the American south in Welty’s works (Welty 55). Other equally important features in Welty’s works that shows the influences of the south in her work are the major themes in her works, personal issues and historical perspectives. A number of critics have cited Welty’s inability to attack the southern states for their numerous humanitarian atrocities including slavery and racism. Apparently, most of Welty’s works avoid politics, “such is a fundamental feature in her works that influenced her success in the realms of literature” (Marrs 65). Most of her works endeared to a wide category of audiences. Most authors who assess politics in their works often adopt a position in the prevailing political conversations in their societies. Doing this limits the audience to those who share similar ideologies. Welty therefore broadened her target audience by ignoring the politics and such contentious issues in the south including slavery in her works. Most of the major themes in her works include the conflict in the relationship between individuals and the community, the influence and role of land or place and family in one’s life and storytelling among many others. Story telling is both a theme and literary technique common among the south. As explained earlier, most of her works adopted and portrayed oral tradition, which she presents through story telling among the characters. The importance of family, place and even land were yet other features that shows the influence of the American south in the author’s works. Such features arose from the closely-knit social structure of the southern societies coupled with the role of agriculture among other economic activities in the region (Aevlin 67). In her works, the author shows immense concern with folk tale, legend, mythology and intersection between romance and history. She does this systematically thereby ensuring that she endears to the southern societies. She portrays the importance of place explaining that with place come customs, associations and feelings among other intricate features that enhance conflict in a plot. In A Worn Path, one of her most successful short stories, the author portrays the importance of place. The place in the context of the story among many other stories is the south. In the story, the lead character, Phoenix, fight in order to overcome the barriers in the southern landscape as she treks to a nearest town. The same is the case with The Wide Net as the author uses place to influence the mood and plot of the story. In such stories, the author provides vivid description of the place thereby making the landscape of the south conspicuous. Attribution to place is a strategic feature and a portrayal of the influence of the south in the author’s works. The moods, plots and thematic issues Welty addressed in her short stories among other works is comparable to the works of some other iconic writers from the south such as Katherine Ann Porter and William Faulkner among many others. the works of such artists show violence, voice, feelings about the community, attitudes towards land and the ways of telling stories similarly as was a major custom in the south (MacNeil 91). In retrospect, the society is often a major factor that influences the works of authors. Authors write for a particular audience. As such, they must therefore write with the view t endearing to their target audience. Furthermore, authors live in particular societies and must therefore approach their work with the view to analyzing social, political and cultural issues, as they exist in their societies. This implies that the place an artist lives influences his or her works. Such an argument is evident in Eudora Alice Welty’s works. Her southern origin influences the thematic issues she presents and the literary techniques she uses in presenting the issues. Works cited Aevlin, Albert J. Welty: A Life in Literature. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1987. Print. Carson, Barbara H. Eudora Welty: Two Pictures at Once in Her Frame. Troy, NY: Whitston, 1992. Print. MacNeil, Robert. Eudora Welty: Seeing Black and White. Jackson: University of Press of Mississippi, 1990. Print. Marrs, Suzanne. Eudora Welty: A Biography. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., 2005. Print Welty, Eudora. One Writers Beginnings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984. Print. Read More