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‘The waiting arms of Missouri’: human connections and sheltered lives in Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s Daughter
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Orientador(es)
Resumo(s)
This paper reads The Optimist’s Daughter based on the symbolic, silent, and
scarce presence of Missouri, the black housekeeper of the Mckelva’s house. On the
one hand, her presence in the novel is rare and subsidiary; on the other hand, her
presence signals Laurel’s sheltered life and her need for human connections,
showing,as Peggy Prenshaw suggests, that Welty truly believes in “the human
connection between freely operating individuals who engage issues that directly
affect their lives”. Attuned to the political and social codes of the racial South, the
embraces between Laurel and Missouri are silent, but they are also a reinforcement
of what Prenshaw designates as the “respectful listening to the position of the
other”.
Besides, this paper underlines the connection between Missouri and the birds, an association which corroborates Welty’s predisposition to listen to the voice of
Nature. In the novel, the birds’ journeys intensify and anticipate the imminent
flight Laurel is to take into another life, that of imagination and artistic independence. Their presence may also indicate Welty’s intuition of a collective
and racially-based desire for flight and freedom.
Descrição
Palavras-chave
Welty, Eudora, 1909-2001 The Optimist's Daughter Missouri Racial south Nature Imagination
Contexto Educativo
Citação
Revista Anglo Saxonica, Série III, Nº5. Lisboa: 2013. Pp. 47-64
Editora
Centro de Estudos Anglísticos da Universidade de Lisboa