Essays on Eudora Welty

April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001

Eudora Alice Welty was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer, who wrote about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

“A Curtain of Green”, “Delta Wedding”, “Losing Battles”, “One Writer’s Beginnings”, “The Eye of the Story”, “The Golden Apples”, “The Optimist’s Daughter”, “The Petrified Man”, “The Ponder Heart”, “The Wide Net and Other Stories”, “Why I Live at the P.O.”

Eudora Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi. Welty attended Mississippi State College for Women before transferring to the University of Wisconsin, from which she graduated in 1929. During the Great Depression she was a photographer on the Works Progress Administration’s Guide to Mississippi. She also worked as a writer for a radio station and newspaper in her native Jackson, Mississippi, before her fiction won popular and critical acclaim.

Welty’s main subject is the intricacies of human relationships, particularly as revealed through her characters’ interactions in intimate social encounters. Among her themes are the subjectivity and ambiguity of people’s perception of character and the presence of virtue hidden beneath an obscuring surface of convention, insensitivity, and social prejudice. Welty’s outlook is hopeful, and love is viewed as a redeeming presence in the midst of isolation and indifference. Her works combine humour and psychological acuity with a sharp ear for regional speech patterns.

Eudora Welty died from natural causes on July 23, 2001. She is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson. Welty now ranks as one of the most significant writers of the twentieth century. Her work teaches us about ourselves and about the human spirit.

“All serious daring starts from within.”
“We are the breakers of our own hearts”
“It doesn t matter if it takes a long time getting there; the point is to have a destination.”
“Never think you've seen the last of anything.”