Honors Theses
Date of Award
2009
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
English
First Advisor
Kathryn McKee
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
This thesis inspects the tension between home and travel in Eudora Welty’s fiction and life, using Delta Wedding as an example of home and the prescriptive identity it often confers. The Optimist's Daughter as evidence of the trials of returning home to find it changed, and four stories from The Bride of the Innisfallen as examples of the freedoms of leaving home and embracing placelessness. In examining these three works, I attempt to discern what the characters’ diverse perspectives and experiences reveal about the complex and sometimes unacknowledged realities of home, whether through their reliance on it as a source of identity, their rejection of it as an act of freedom, or their recognition, however momentary, of the complications, indignities, or selfdeceptions upon which the survival of their understandings of home and of themselves rest. 1 conclude that home itself functions as an often “unthought” reality within Welty’s fiction. Her work implies that one should both appreciate it and consider its shortcomings, recognizing its influence while refusing to allow it to dictate identity.
Recommended Citation
Blasingame, Mallory Nicole, "No Place for You, My Love: Negotiation of Home and Identity in Eudora Welty's Delta Wedight, The Optimist's Daughter, and The Bride of the Innisfallen" (2009). Honors Theses. 2296.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2296
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