Welty’s writing is excellent, particularly in the sense that it is so far from anything I could possibly write. Her descriptions of the rural south are so dead on that you feel like you’re there the whole time. Now that I’ve made the bold statement “Eudora Welty is a good writer” I can move on. While reading both these stories all I could think is, “Man, I need to get out more.” First, “A Worn Path” about an old woman’s journey through the woods to get medicine for her grandchild. Let me start by saying “Phoenix Jackson” is a fantastic name. When I heard it I thought this might be a story of an ABA player turned crime fighter in 1976- but no, it was still the old woman. Regardless, this old woman mumbles to herself and even hallucinates being given cake at times (something I do now…I should see a doctor.) She takes this terrible journey, which involves going into a ditch and dealing with a strange dog in the dead of winter, just to help a loved one. Plus, she’s around 100 years old. I give an exasperated sigh if I have to walk across campus to help a friend and I’m in my mid-20’s. This did not make me feel great. If I had a child I’d like to think I’d go stumbling through the woods to get the help he needed and nice windmill. But right now I don’t have the motivation to get up to grab a sandwich from my kitchen so my guess is if it were me my grandchild’s throat would be sore for a long time. Then “No Place for You, My Love” which just made me want to go to New Orleans. Sure terrible things happen to the two of them but maybe that’s what happens when you try to cheat on your wife with a woman with an awful hat. And about the woman, she just gets in a car with a strange man to drive to an unknown area in Louisiana? This is not great advice for any young woman on her way to Mardi Gras. While reading this I just kept remembering images of Katrina and how much of the areas she described were entirely submerged. How many areas were destroyed and will never return to their former splendor. And how lucky we are that she wrote this when she did, because after the storm this story may have had to take place in downtown Cleveland. And trying to have gator wrasslin’ in the middle of public transportation is a finable offense up there.
I’m not really sure what to talk about for either of these stories. What stood out to me most were little details. There are so many short throwaway sentences mixed in between the bigger details full of action and character. The details are astounding – brief mentions of the setting tossed in between conversation that make the stories seem real, even when the characters’ emotions or actions or meanings seem unclear. I can see what Phoenix is seeing, even if I’m just as confused as she is about some of the events. I can see what the man and woman see as they eat their sandwiches, even as they have a conversation in very few words. Sometimes, to me, the action through the settings was murky, but the setting itself, the woman reflecting upon the sunlight bearing down on her, Phoenix reaching for her penny – that felt real. In all honesty, I would have difficulty telling you what both of these stories are about, but I would be able to recount the feeling that I got based on the setting and tone. I felt Phoenix’s weariness and I felt the woman’s longing to get out of the heat, to just drink her glass of water.
I don’t really have finalized readings on either story, because the hazy aspects are meant to confuse the reader, and it definitely worked on me. Phoenix’s memory messed with my comprehension, as it is supposed to, and the heat that addles the man and woman’s brains threw me off, too. I have suspicions about both stories, and I have no idea if they’re right. As for Phoenix, I can’t tell if her grandson is alive or dead, or if he ever even existed. It seems as though he may have died a few years ago, but she keeps making her trip anyway. I can’t tell if this is the obvious reading of the last page or so I’m supposed to have come up with, or if I’m totally wrong. Likewise, I got the sense, in the other story, that the strangers weren’t strangers after all, and that they were one another’s regular choice for affair. Again, I could have read the story entirely wrong, but the suspicion grew in me as I read through the whole story. These were both tough for me to decipher, but I have my guesses.
Lee Smith’s introduction for Eudora Welty said that her stories, namely “A Worn Path,” can be considered “mythic journey[s] through almost-magic landscape[s], pilgrimage[s].” I think he got the nail on the head there for both stories we were assigned. We follow the characters in “A Worn Path” and in “No Place for You, My Love” as they take specific journeys down specific paths/ roads. Those characters encounter things that are plausible and realistic, but Welty’s descriptions of them act as a sort of distortion. When she says that Phoenix Jackson’s skin “had a pattern all its own of numberless branching wrinkles and as though a whole little tree stood in the middle of her forehead,” she’s taking something we’ve all seen before—wrinkles on an old lady—and making them surreal. She defamiliarizes the familiar, which I guess we can consider evidence of “good fiction,” but does it so relentlessly that she stands out amongst other writers.
Despite her remarkable ability to describe, I struggled to get fully invested in these stories. I felt that a lot of the time, they were only describing. In “A Worn Path,” there was a “she saw this, she passed through this, she made her way by this” form that was sometimes repetitive and predictable. The story was kept alive for me by the vividness of what it was Phoenix saw and witnessed, but the step-by-step nature of it sometimes felt unnatural.
As for an application to my own writing, I’d say Welty showed me something I should have known already. Before reading these stories, and before the workshop yesterday, I was under the impression that the best short stories were those in which every detail was significant. “Significant,” I thought, meant that it pointed towards the central theme of the story itself. I had tried to make every description relevant to what I wanted the central topic to be, which, I now know, only leads to unrealistic over-exaggerations of trivial things like, well, pancakes. Welty’s story includes details to set the scene, the mood, the feeling, and generally just to make sure we understand what’s going on in the world she’s creating. In “No Place for You, My Love,” the live lizard in the child’s shirt that looks “like lapis lazuli” may not be “significant” in that it points directly to a central theme, but because it captures the scene we’re supposed to imagine.
In her introduction, Lee Smith quotes Eudora Welty, who says her stories are “written from within” and are part of her “long familiarity with the thoughts and feelings of those around [her].” This is strikingly apparent in her two stories, “A Worn Path” and “No Place for You, My Love.” Her details are so vivid, it is clear that she knows this area well. Someone who has never visited New Orleans would have a difficult time coming up with lines such as: “Below New Orleans there was a raging of insects from both sides of the concrete highway, not quite together, like the playing of separate marching bands” (from “No Place for You, My Love”). This line reminded me of Baxter’s essay on defamiliarization, making the familiar strange. It would be easy to say “The crickets chirped” or “The flies buzzed” because we are used to those images. But comparing the insects to marching bands made me take a step back and imagine what that would look and sound like. It kept me engaged.
The vivid details continue in her other story, “A Worn Path.” Phoenix Jackson is described as having “numberless branching wrinkles as though a whole little tree stood in the middle of her forehead.” I was in awe of some of the details Welty uses, particularly because I struggle to “defamiliarize” my details in my own writing. I often have trouble reimagining concepts and describing them in a new way.
I agree with the other posts about having difficulty becoming invested in the stories and figuring out exactly what is going on in them. Though “A Worn Path” was written in the third person, I still felt the narration was a little unreliable because we only see what Phoenix sees (and I’m not sure how stable her mind is). As for “No Place for You, My Love” the majority of the story was a journey, and I kept waiting and waiting for something major to happen. But in the end, they dance, return to the city and go their separate ways. As Lee Smith mentions in her intro, the setting is so extreme, the plot and its resolution are understated in comparison.
While Eudora Welty’s writing is very good, I had trouble reading the story “No Place for You, My Love” because I didn’t find anything really to be interesting. The characters weren’t as interesting as Phoenix in “A Worn Path.” But I really admire her use of details and how she described the South because I really felt like I was there experiencing it with the characters. Her use of details is also a little intimidating, as I have no idea how to respond to her style of writing. Depending on what the story is about, I would be gladly to read more of her stories. I really connected with “A Worn Path” because the main character was just so interesting and that she felt very real to me. I could feel what she was feeling and hear what she was saying. And I loved her personality, as here was this little old woman who traveled through the forest just to get some medicine for her grandson. She encounters hills, thorn bushes, dogs, and a white hunter all while walking with untied shoes, which takes a lot of skill not to trip with every step. I fell in love with Phoenix and I wanted to read more about her adventures as I felt like she was one of those characters that would embark on a journey to places unknown. “No Place for You, My Love” took me a lot longer than I expected because there was very little action in it and I didn’t really see the characters at all. At first I thought that they were in a different time period like the early 1900s when cars first appeared but then as I continued reading I noticed that it was in the present not in the past. The only part that interested me was when the main characters were at Baba’s restaurant and that whole scene was so enriched with detail that I could see everything is going on. I cared less about the main character well I somewhat cared about the girl but I didn’t really get a chance to get to know her very well which is the same for all of the other characters. I really felt like the story was more about the setting than the characters and plot, as if the setting was the main character.
Not a fan of Eudora Welty’s “No Place for You, My Love.” Reading it, I had the same feeling I get sometimes when I’m reading science textbooks or religious texts for other classes, where I only understand half the words but the author is acting like I know as much as they do. Or like I was watching a Spanish soap opera, where I’m just barely trailing along, understanding most of the words but never getting a good grip on what’s going on. I’m not sure if it’s Welty’s style, or a characteristic of the writing of the time—if people back then may have been used to that style—but it just baffled me. The way she switches perspective for a paragraph here or there; unusual observations or phrasings that she drops like we know what they mean (and maybe some do?). I liked her descriptions, I liked the way she sees things, so different from the way I do. The subject matter of two strangers going for an “adventure” and then just wandering intrigued me, it’s something I would write about, definitely. The woman riding with a man she’d just met may be indicative of the time, or may have required a little bit of suspension of disbelief, back then as well, but ultimately it didn’t hold me back. What I really liked about the story, and what makes me curse Welty a little for being tricky is the very last line: “As he drove the little Ford safely to its garage, he remembered for the first time in years when he was young and brash, a student in New York, and the shriek and horror and unholy smother of the subway had its original meaning for him as the lilt and expectation of love.” The last page, in fact, was pure gold, I thought, and it made me wonder a bit if Welty had been holding back throughout the story. I almost had the sense that she wasn’t even that engaged throughout much of the story, and was only writing at peak performance at the end. I don’t know, just an odd feeling I had. I enjoyed “A Worn Path” much more. I loved Phoenix Jackson so much. She was so distinct to me and interesting and engaging and funny and determined. Maybe I just had so much more of a sense of her than the characters in “No Place for You, My Love” and that made a big difference (she’s definitely more likeable than the narrator in that one, at least.) I also liked her strange little visions throughout the story—I thought they flowed and fit and worked. One last point—and this response is a bit too long, I think, I can never tell when I write in Word—I can’t help but look at the race aspect. I think this is solely as a modern reader, and perhaps the characters such as the doctor and the hunter weren’t meant to be cast negatively, but I see them as such based on the way they treat her due to her race. Now, they also treat her poorly because she’s old and because she’s poor, so I’m thinking maybe Welty did intend for them to be seen as jerks, but I’m not sure. I wonder how people treat this subject when they study Welty.
Reading Baxter’s essay “On Defamiliarization,” I noticed something interesting that I expect might be easily overlooked, and I found it relevant to my readings of the two assigned stories by Eudora Welty. If I’m remembering correctly (I don’t have Baxter’s book in front of me, because I’m sharing Kim’s copy), Baxter defines defamiliarization not only as “making the familiar strange,” as we would expect, but also as “making the strange familiar.” As I read “A Worn Path” and “No Place for You, My Love,” I saw Welty taking both of these approaches to defamiliarization in her fiction.
For the former definition, my reading of “A Worn Path” has something to do with what Alex pointed out in the introduction by Lee Smith. “The simplicity of this story adds to its mythic dimension,” Smith writes, and that captures my reaction perfectly. I immediately got the vibe of a myth from “A Worn Path,” and I’m only now figuring out why. Take, for instance, this very simple sentence from the first paragraph: “Her name was Phoenix Jackson.” Simple, right? Welty is merely telling us the protagonist’s name. But think of how other writers writing other stories might have relayed that information. The second sentence might begin, “An old Negro woman named Phoenix Jackson,” etc. Instead, her name gets a sentence all its own. This technique empowers the name and helps to elevate Phoenix Jackson into the role of mythic figure. Such attention to syntax as well as odd details—her untied shoelaces, her eyes “blue with age,” her talking to animals—serves to make this potentially familiar scene strange.
Now, personally, I did not find “No Place for You, My Love” to be the compelling, enjoyable read that “A Worn Path” was, but I do like the passage about the alligator, and I think it serves my purpose well for an example of “making the strange familiar.” This is on page 1059 in our anthology: “The boys had a surprise—an alligator on board.” Whoa! That certainly got my attention. I expected the alligator to be treated with screams, maybe it would attack someone, or someone would attack it first. Regardless, an alligator is on board a ferry with a bunch of people; surely some blood is going to be shed, right? No, instead, “One of them pulled it by a chain around the deck, between the cars and trucks, like a toy.” Huh. Well, certainly some onlookers will be frightened. Let’s see: “He thought, Well they had to catch one sometime. It’s Sunday afternoon.” Wow, okay. There’s my expectations defied. So even if “No Place for You, My Love” isn’t my new favorite story in the world, I have to give Welty credit for making something strange familiar, which Baxter lumps in with defamiliarization, although I think of it as more of a “reverse defamiliarization.” De-strange-ification? Discuss.
Her writing styles is interesting and drawing – she focused on central characters (a skill which eludes me unless I happen to wander into first-person) drawing the reader with the un-clarity or it. ‘A Worn Path’ I feel is just one representation of the solitary human. Hasn’t there been a time in everyone’s life when we have walked alone with nothing to fill the silence but the sound of our own voices and the clamor of our thoughts or the music running through our minds and the natural or unnatural scenery stretching out before us? And we get wrapped up in our thoughts so much, don’t we sometimes forget our purpose in going to our destination for a little bit, much like Phoenix did when she finally arrived in town? I like the portrayal of Aunt Phoenix for I feel like it’s an accurate representation of (certain) humans in their moments of solitude. Welty keeps it interesting through scene description and Phoenix’s habit to talk to herself or – more accurately – to the forest animals which may or may not be lurking about in the thorny bushes. She reminds me of my grandmother – who is a bit pricklier than Phoenix and darker in the skin than any of us – us being my mother, father and brother. She has a cane too and often complains of cramps and like Phoenix she goes on errands (though not through the woods) to the supermarket and various other places, completely her tasks with dedication and equipped with a bag full of random junk to keep her balance. ‘No place for you, my love’ is more a representation of mutual solitude – solitude shared with one other person, solitude in company. The main characters in this story appeared to be unnamed but we know where they are from – Syracuse, New York (the man) and the Toledo, Ohio (the woman). And their accompanying cast are people they meet on the journey – also nameless people with the exception of Baba (whose name confused me for a bit – I thought the man had been named but it didn’t make sense). We see what’s only on the surface – I’m sure there’s supposed to be a metaphor for that ‘end of the road’ but it eludes me as does the relationship between Toledo woman and Syracuse man (sounds like codenames don’t they?). We do not hear the thoughts – the man does not seem to entertain the idea of cheating on his wife and we know next to nothing about the Toledo woman. The kiss between Toledo woman and Syracuse man hardly gives us any proof for anything because he could have just needed to kiss someone and she was the closest person.
“Why I Live at the P.O.” was a unique story, definitely one I’ve never read before. It’s the story about a girl they call Sister and her horrible interactions with her Mother, her own sister Stella-Rondo, her grandfather Papa-Daddy, and her Uncle Rondo. Sister’s family through the piece is basically trying to pin everything on her, while she’s just trying to be an honest girl. Eudora’s writing within the piece was good in the respect that it stuck completely to the character and how that character would speak through out this incident. Some things were a little off about the story; the beginning seemed abrupt, the whole story seemed it actually until you get used to it, and some of the things her characters do are more intense than the norm. My mind forced me to think that Sister was a little girl, but a few things compelled me against that (the fact that she’s working and that Stella-Rondo is younger than her and she has got two kids and had a husband…). I wanted to believe she was younger because I couldn’t wrap my head around someone over the age of 18 wanting to run away and go live in a post office. Also, how she selfishly took her things back, especially the “the sewing-machine motor I helped pay the most on to give Mama for Christmas back in 1929”. “A Worn Path” is definitely my favorite out of the two. The writing is far more beautiful, and the story is infinity less erratic. I can see why so many people are commenting that it’s so beautiful, especially since I read “Why I Live at the P.O.” first. “A Worn Path” is definitely more believable for me, but was harder for me to read, because I remained captured in a way, with how beautiful the writing was. Little things in Welty’s writing took me, “she gave off perfume like the red roses in hot summer”, and I find it easy to want to mimic her style. Definitely easier than John Cheever.
As I already expressed in class, I found "No Place for You, My Love" a difficult read. As of right now, I'm lumping it into the long list of things I've read that I know are important, I appreciate them, but just haven't really clicked. I found "Worn Path" much more enjoyable, mostly because I had this fascinating character to latch onto. Even in the moments of muddle confusion and strangeness I didn't get overwhelmed by it. Obviously the confusion in Welty's writing is intentional, maybe I just have to give "No Place for You" another try. I often find I like stories better after I've discussed them and gotten some outside opinions/readings.
I did admire how strange, and, I was about to say dream-like, but maybe it's more nightmareish, hallucinatory(?), both of these stories were. I think it's incredibly easy to forget that not everyone has had our same experiences. And of course, for survival reasons, we cannot be in constant shock and awe of our surroundings. Even when placed in the oddest of settings, we'd get used to be eventually. Baxter's essay on defamiliarization served as a reminder to me that, as a writer, I need to fight those instincts. I have to turn a critical eye to my everyday. Or, conversely, make what seems unnatural or horrifying, typical and commonplace.
I found in the writing excerise that we attempted, how the simple act of unnaming can make a scene strange. What I mean by that is, there are plenty of things I know the name to, I can say "Oh, that is a cat" for example. But to take away the name and try to experience the cat without the word for it. Well, things become alien. Maybe I've gone off topic a bit here...
I want to take the time in my late blog entry, to expand upon something I said in class. I was talking about the differences between “A Worn Path” and “No Place for You, My Love” and mentioned I didn’t think the former was more driven by the characters Old Phoenix run ins too while the later was more driven by the metaphor created by the defamiliarization of the south. Thinking about it- most often I found while writing an in-class paper on Susan Minot’s “Lust”- I realized this was not wholly true. Really, the man and the woman on their travels are just as affected by Baba and each other, as Old Phoenix’s trip was by the hunter.
The country may have been used for the deeper metaphor- one which was lost to me as it seems it was for Kim and Alexis- and it was used in a different way for both pieces, but the characters had a drive of there own that I did not give them credit for. There were the passages that we went over to day, the bruise on the woman’s face and the way the man looked at her like he did his hand, and other moments where details gave the characters the strength to move the story without the metaphor. I think that I got caught up in the instructional part of this piece, I was too busy trying to understand what all the little details were meant to tell me to ever enjoy them. Even after reading it again, and again before I wrote this, I found that I was too busy trying to sort the details to appreciate what they were telling me.
I don’t know if it was a function of the style of “No Place for You, My Love”, since I had less trouble with ”A Worn Path”, or if it was just because I liked Old Phoenix more than the nameless man and women. I think part of what gets me through a narrative is the interesting details I first get about the character. It seems like Eudora Wetly is someone I have to read more of to become a better reader if not a better writer.
Inspired by Phoenix Jackson’s walk into town, this is a version of how a younger girl may experience the walk through the forest. The sunlight glinted through the blankets of leaves overhead, surprising her eyes when they would pop out of the darkness. The gold filtered through the thick layer of branches and landed on the ground in moving patterns. Looking ahead, she could see dust in the air, floating, catching the occasional light. There was no path, no trails. The only map that she could see was the route of fallen trunks or sizable logs that obstructed her way. Taking a swat at a loud buzzing beside her ear made her stumble. Her foot caught on a patch of tangled weeds, pulling her down. It had rained the night before; the fresh, yet slightly smothering, scent was still palpable in the air. The dirt that had been mud only hours previously had taken on the texture of soft clay. She peeled a patch off of her palm, noticing how the lines of her hand had imprinted the muck to match. After contemplating it for a while in her hands, she laid the small brown bit of soil to dry on a decaying stump a couple feet away. She would find it on her way back, after it had time to solidify.
Welty’s writing is excellent, particularly in the sense that it is so far from anything I could possibly write. Her descriptions of the rural south are so dead on that you feel like you’re there the whole time. Now that I’ve made the bold statement “Eudora Welty is a good writer” I can move on. While reading both these stories all I could think is, “Man, I need to get out more.”
ReplyDeleteFirst, “A Worn Path” about an old woman’s journey through the woods to get medicine for her grandchild. Let me start by saying “Phoenix Jackson” is a fantastic name. When I heard it I thought this might be a story of an ABA player turned crime fighter in 1976- but no, it was still the old woman. Regardless, this old woman mumbles to herself and even hallucinates being given cake at times (something I do now…I should see a doctor.) She takes this terrible journey, which involves going into a ditch and dealing with a strange dog in the dead of winter, just to help a loved one. Plus, she’s around 100 years old. I give an exasperated sigh if I have to walk across campus to help a friend and I’m in my mid-20’s. This did not make me feel great. If I had a child I’d like to think I’d go stumbling through the woods to get the help he needed and nice windmill. But right now I don’t have the motivation to get up to grab a sandwich from my kitchen so my guess is if it were me my grandchild’s throat would be sore for a long time.
Then “No Place for You, My Love” which just made me want to go to New Orleans. Sure terrible things happen to the two of them but maybe that’s what happens when you try to cheat on your wife with a woman with an awful hat. And about the woman, she just gets in a car with a strange man to drive to an unknown area in Louisiana? This is not great advice for any young woman on her way to Mardi Gras. While reading this I just kept remembering images of Katrina and how much of the areas she described were entirely submerged. How many areas were destroyed and will never return to their former splendor. And how lucky we are that she wrote this when she did, because after the storm this story may have had to take place in downtown Cleveland. And trying to have gator wrasslin’ in the middle of public transportation is a finable offense up there.
I’m not really sure what to talk about for either of these stories. What stood out to me most were little details. There are so many short throwaway sentences mixed in between the bigger details full of action and character. The details are astounding – brief mentions of the setting tossed in between conversation that make the stories seem real, even when the characters’ emotions or actions or meanings seem unclear. I can see what Phoenix is seeing, even if I’m just as confused as she is about some of the events. I can see what the man and woman see as they eat their sandwiches, even as they have a conversation in very few words. Sometimes, to me, the action through the settings was murky, but the setting itself, the woman reflecting upon the sunlight bearing down on her, Phoenix reaching for her penny – that felt real. In all honesty, I would have difficulty telling you what both of these stories are about, but I would be able to recount the feeling that I got based on the setting and tone. I felt Phoenix’s weariness and I felt the woman’s longing to get out of the heat, to just drink her glass of water.
ReplyDeleteI don’t really have finalized readings on either story, because the hazy aspects are meant to confuse the reader, and it definitely worked on me. Phoenix’s memory messed with my comprehension, as it is supposed to, and the heat that addles the man and woman’s brains threw me off, too. I have suspicions about both stories, and I have no idea if they’re right. As for Phoenix, I can’t tell if her grandson is alive or dead, or if he ever even existed. It seems as though he may have died a few years ago, but she keeps making her trip anyway. I can’t tell if this is the obvious reading of the last page or so I’m supposed to have come up with, or if I’m totally wrong. Likewise, I got the sense, in the other story, that the strangers weren’t strangers after all, and that they were one another’s regular choice for affair. Again, I could have read the story entirely wrong, but the suspicion grew in me as I read through the whole story. These were both tough for me to decipher, but I have my guesses.
Lee Smith’s introduction for Eudora Welty said that her stories, namely “A Worn Path,” can be considered “mythic journey[s] through almost-magic landscape[s], pilgrimage[s].” I think he got the nail on the head there for both stories we were assigned. We follow the characters in “A Worn Path” and in “No Place for You, My Love” as they take specific journeys down specific paths/ roads. Those characters encounter things that are plausible and realistic, but Welty’s descriptions of them act as a sort of distortion. When she says that Phoenix Jackson’s skin “had a pattern all its own of numberless branching wrinkles and as though a whole little tree stood in the middle of her forehead,” she’s taking something we’ve all seen before—wrinkles on an old lady—and making them surreal. She defamiliarizes the familiar, which I guess we can consider evidence of “good fiction,” but does it so relentlessly that she stands out amongst other writers.
ReplyDeleteDespite her remarkable ability to describe, I struggled to get fully invested in these stories. I felt that a lot of the time, they were only describing. In “A Worn Path,” there was a “she saw this, she passed through this, she made her way by this” form that was sometimes repetitive and predictable. The story was kept alive for me by the vividness of what it was Phoenix saw and witnessed, but the step-by-step nature of it sometimes felt unnatural.
As for an application to my own writing, I’d say Welty showed me something I should have known already. Before reading these stories, and before the workshop yesterday, I was under the impression that the best short stories were those in which every detail was significant. “Significant,” I thought, meant that it pointed towards the central theme of the story itself. I had tried to make every description relevant to what I wanted the central topic to be, which, I now know, only leads to unrealistic over-exaggerations of trivial things like, well, pancakes. Welty’s story includes details to set the scene, the mood, the feeling, and generally just to make sure we understand what’s going on in the world she’s creating. In “No Place for You, My Love,” the live lizard in the child’s shirt that looks “like lapis lazuli” may not be “significant” in that it points directly to a central theme, but because it captures the scene we’re supposed to imagine.
In her introduction, Lee Smith quotes Eudora Welty, who says her stories are “written from within” and are part of her “long familiarity with the thoughts and feelings of those around [her].” This is strikingly apparent in her two stories, “A Worn Path” and “No Place for You, My Love.” Her details are so vivid, it is clear that she knows this area well. Someone who has never visited New Orleans would have a difficult time coming up with lines such as: “Below New Orleans there was a raging of insects from both sides of the concrete highway, not quite together, like the playing of separate marching bands” (from “No Place for You, My Love”). This line reminded me of Baxter’s essay on defamiliarization, making the familiar strange. It would be easy to say “The crickets chirped” or “The flies buzzed” because we are used to those images. But comparing the insects to marching bands made me take a step back and imagine what that would look and sound like. It kept me engaged.
ReplyDeleteThe vivid details continue in her other story, “A Worn Path.” Phoenix Jackson is described as having “numberless branching wrinkles as though a whole little tree stood in the middle of her forehead.” I was in awe of some of the details Welty uses, particularly because I struggle to “defamiliarize” my details in my own writing. I often have trouble reimagining concepts and describing them in a new way.
I agree with the other posts about having difficulty becoming invested in the stories and figuring out exactly what is going on in them. Though “A Worn Path” was written in the third person, I still felt the narration was a little unreliable because we only see what Phoenix sees (and I’m not sure how stable her mind is). As for “No Place for You, My Love” the majority of the story was a journey, and I kept waiting and waiting for something major to happen. But in the end, they dance, return to the city and go their separate ways. As Lee Smith mentions in her intro, the setting is so extreme, the plot and its resolution are understated in comparison.
While Eudora Welty’s writing is very good, I had trouble reading the story “No Place for You, My Love” because I didn’t find anything really to be interesting. The characters weren’t as interesting as Phoenix in “A Worn Path.” But I really admire her use of details and how she described the South because I really felt like I was there experiencing it with the characters. Her use of details is also a little intimidating, as I have no idea how to respond to her style of writing. Depending on what the story is about, I would be gladly to read more of her stories.
ReplyDeleteI really connected with “A Worn Path” because the main character was just so interesting and that she felt very real to me. I could feel what she was feeling and hear what she was saying. And I loved her personality, as here was this little old woman who traveled through the forest just to get some medicine for her grandson. She encounters hills, thorn bushes, dogs, and a white hunter all while walking with untied shoes, which takes a lot of skill not to trip with every step. I fell in love with Phoenix and I wanted to read more about her adventures as I felt like she was one of those characters that would embark on a journey to places unknown.
“No Place for You, My Love” took me a lot longer than I expected because there was very little action in it and I didn’t really see the characters at all. At first I thought that they were in a different time period like the early 1900s when cars first appeared but then as I continued reading I noticed that it was in the present not in the past. The only part that interested me was when the main characters were at Baba’s restaurant and that whole scene was so enriched with detail that I could see everything is going on. I cared less about the main character well I somewhat cared about the girl but I didn’t really get a chance to get to know her very well which is the same for all of the other characters. I really felt like the story was more about the setting than the characters and plot, as if the setting was the main character.
Not a fan of Eudora Welty’s “No Place for You, My Love.” Reading it, I had the same feeling I get sometimes when I’m reading science textbooks or religious texts for other classes, where I only understand half the words but the author is acting like I know as much as they do. Or like I was watching a Spanish soap opera, where I’m just barely trailing along, understanding most of the words but never getting a good grip on what’s going on. I’m not sure if it’s Welty’s style, or a characteristic of the writing of the time—if people back then may have been used to that style—but it just baffled me. The way she switches perspective for a paragraph here or there; unusual observations or phrasings that she drops like we know what they mean (and maybe some do?). I liked her descriptions, I liked the way she sees things, so different from the way I do. The subject matter of two strangers going for an “adventure” and then just wandering intrigued me, it’s something I would write about, definitely. The woman riding with a man she’d just met may be indicative of the time, or may have required a little bit of suspension of disbelief, back then as well, but ultimately it didn’t hold me back. What I really liked about the story, and what makes me curse Welty a little for being tricky is the very last line: “As he drove the little Ford safely to its garage, he remembered for the first time in years when he was young and brash, a student in New York, and the shriek and horror and unholy smother of the subway had its original meaning for him as the lilt and expectation of love.” The last page, in fact, was pure gold, I thought, and it made me wonder a bit if Welty had been holding back throughout the story. I almost had the sense that she wasn’t even that engaged throughout much of the story, and was only writing at peak performance at the end. I don’t know, just an odd feeling I had. I enjoyed “A Worn Path” much more. I loved Phoenix Jackson so much. She was so distinct to me and interesting and engaging and funny and determined. Maybe I just had so much more of a sense of her than the characters in “No Place for You, My Love” and that made a big difference (she’s definitely more likeable than the narrator in that one, at least.) I also liked her strange little visions throughout the story—I thought they flowed and fit and worked. One last point—and this response is a bit too long, I think, I can never tell when I write in Word—I can’t help but look at the race aspect. I think this is solely as a modern reader, and perhaps the characters such as the doctor and the hunter weren’t meant to be cast negatively, but I see them as such based on the way they treat her due to her race. Now, they also treat her poorly because she’s old and because she’s poor, so I’m thinking maybe Welty did intend for them to be seen as jerks, but I’m not sure. I wonder how people treat this subject when they study Welty.
ReplyDeleteReading Baxter’s essay “On Defamiliarization,” I noticed something interesting that I expect might be easily overlooked, and I found it relevant to my readings of the two assigned stories by Eudora Welty. If I’m remembering correctly (I don’t have Baxter’s book in front of me, because I’m sharing Kim’s copy), Baxter defines defamiliarization not only as “making the familiar strange,” as we would expect, but also as “making the strange familiar.” As I read “A Worn Path” and “No Place for You, My Love,” I saw Welty taking both of these approaches to defamiliarization in her fiction.
ReplyDeleteFor the former definition, my reading of “A Worn Path” has something to do with what Alex pointed out in the introduction by Lee Smith. “The simplicity of this story adds to its mythic dimension,” Smith writes, and that captures my reaction perfectly. I immediately got the vibe of a myth from “A Worn Path,” and I’m only now figuring out why. Take, for instance, this very simple sentence from the first paragraph: “Her name was Phoenix Jackson.” Simple, right? Welty is merely telling us the protagonist’s name. But think of how other writers writing other stories might have relayed that information. The second sentence might begin, “An old Negro woman named Phoenix Jackson,” etc. Instead, her name gets a sentence all its own. This technique empowers the name and helps to elevate Phoenix Jackson into the role of mythic figure. Such attention to syntax as well as odd details—her untied shoelaces, her eyes “blue with age,” her talking to animals—serves to make this potentially familiar scene strange.
Now, personally, I did not find “No Place for You, My Love” to be the compelling, enjoyable read that “A Worn Path” was, but I do like the passage about the alligator, and I think it serves my purpose well for an example of “making the strange familiar.” This is on page 1059 in our anthology: “The boys had a surprise—an alligator on board.” Whoa! That certainly got my attention. I expected the alligator to be treated with screams, maybe it would attack someone, or someone would attack it first. Regardless, an alligator is on board a ferry with a bunch of people; surely some blood is going to be shed, right? No, instead, “One of them pulled it by a chain around the deck, between the cars and trucks, like a toy.” Huh. Well, certainly some onlookers will be frightened. Let’s see: “He thought, Well they had to catch one sometime. It’s Sunday afternoon.” Wow, okay. There’s my expectations defied. So even if “No Place for You, My Love” isn’t my new favorite story in the world, I have to give Welty credit for making something strange familiar, which Baxter lumps in with defamiliarization, although I think of it as more of a “reverse defamiliarization.” De-strange-ification? Discuss.
Her writing styles is interesting and drawing – she focused on central characters (a skill which eludes me unless I happen to wander into first-person) drawing the reader with the un-clarity or it. ‘A Worn Path’ I feel is just one representation of the solitary human. Hasn’t there been a time in everyone’s life when we have walked alone with nothing to fill the silence but the sound of our own voices and the clamor of our thoughts or the music running through our minds and the natural or unnatural scenery stretching out before us? And we get wrapped up in our thoughts so much, don’t we sometimes forget our purpose in going to our destination for a little bit, much like Phoenix did when she finally arrived in town? I like the portrayal of Aunt Phoenix for I feel like it’s an accurate representation of (certain) humans in their moments of solitude. Welty keeps it interesting through scene description and Phoenix’s habit to talk to herself or – more accurately – to the forest animals which may or may not be lurking about in the thorny bushes. She reminds me of my grandmother – who is a bit pricklier than Phoenix and darker in the skin than any of us – us being my mother, father and brother. She has a cane too and often complains of cramps and like Phoenix she goes on errands (though not through the woods) to the supermarket and various other places, completely her tasks with dedication and equipped with a bag full of random junk to keep her balance.
ReplyDelete‘No place for you, my love’ is more a representation of mutual solitude – solitude shared with one other person, solitude in company. The main characters in this story appeared to be unnamed but we know where they are from – Syracuse, New York (the man) and the Toledo, Ohio (the woman). And their accompanying cast are people they meet on the journey – also nameless people with the exception of Baba (whose name confused me for a bit – I thought the man had been named but it didn’t make sense). We see what’s only on the surface – I’m sure there’s supposed to be a metaphor for that ‘end of the road’ but it eludes me as does the relationship between Toledo woman and Syracuse man (sounds like codenames don’t they?). We do not hear the thoughts – the man does not seem to entertain the idea of cheating on his wife and we know next to nothing about the Toledo woman. The kiss between Toledo woman and Syracuse man hardly gives us any proof for anything because he could have just needed to kiss someone and she was the closest person.
“Why I Live at the P.O.” was a unique story, definitely one I’ve never read before. It’s the story about a girl they call Sister and her horrible interactions with her Mother, her own sister Stella-Rondo, her grandfather Papa-Daddy, and her Uncle Rondo. Sister’s family through the piece is basically trying to pin everything on her, while she’s just trying to be an honest girl. Eudora’s writing within the piece was good in the respect that it stuck completely to the character and how that character would speak through out this incident. Some things were a little off about the story; the beginning seemed abrupt, the whole story seemed it actually until you get used to it, and some of the things her characters do are more intense than the norm. My mind forced me to think that Sister was a little girl, but a few things compelled me against that (the fact that she’s working and that Stella-Rondo is younger than her and she has got two kids and had a husband…). I wanted to believe she was younger because I couldn’t wrap my head around someone over the age of 18 wanting to run away and go live in a post office. Also, how she selfishly took her things back, especially the “the sewing-machine motor I helped pay the most on to give Mama for Christmas back in 1929”.
ReplyDelete“A Worn Path” is definitely my favorite out of the two. The writing is far more beautiful, and the story is infinity less erratic. I can see why so many people are commenting that it’s so beautiful, especially since I read “Why I Live at the P.O.” first. “A Worn Path” is definitely more believable for me, but was harder for me to read, because I remained captured in a way, with how beautiful the writing was. Little things in Welty’s writing took me, “she gave off perfume like the red roses in hot summer”, and I find it easy to want to mimic her style. Definitely easier than John Cheever.
As I already expressed in class, I found "No Place for You, My Love" a difficult read. As of right now, I'm lumping it into the long list of things I've read that I know are important, I appreciate them, but just haven't really clicked. I found "Worn Path" much more enjoyable, mostly because I had this fascinating character to latch onto. Even in the moments of muddle confusion and strangeness I didn't get overwhelmed by it. Obviously the confusion in Welty's writing is intentional, maybe I just have to give "No Place for You" another try. I often find I like stories better after I've discussed them and gotten some outside opinions/readings.
ReplyDeleteI did admire how strange, and, I was about to say dream-like, but maybe it's more nightmareish, hallucinatory(?), both of these stories were. I think it's incredibly easy to forget that not everyone has had our same experiences. And of course, for survival reasons, we cannot be in constant shock and awe of our surroundings. Even when placed in the oddest of settings, we'd get used to be eventually. Baxter's essay on defamiliarization served as a reminder to me that, as a writer, I need to fight those instincts. I have to turn a critical eye to my everyday. Or, conversely, make what seems unnatural or horrifying, typical and commonplace.
I found in the writing excerise that we attempted, how the simple act of unnaming can make a scene strange. What I mean by that is, there are plenty of things I know the name to, I can say "Oh, that is a cat" for example. But to take away the name and try to experience the cat without the word for it. Well, things become alien. Maybe I've gone off topic a bit here...
I want to take the time in my late blog entry, to expand upon something I said in class. I was talking about the differences between “A Worn Path” and “No Place for You, My Love” and mentioned I didn’t think the former was more driven by the characters Old Phoenix run ins too while the later was more driven by the metaphor created by the defamiliarization of the south. Thinking about it- most often I found while writing an in-class paper on Susan Minot’s “Lust”- I realized this was not wholly true. Really, the man and the woman on their travels are just as affected by Baba and each other, as Old Phoenix’s trip was by the hunter.
ReplyDeleteThe country may have been used for the deeper metaphor- one which was lost to me as it seems it was for Kim and Alexis- and it was used in a different way for both pieces, but the characters had a drive of there own that I did not give them credit for. There were the passages that we went over to day, the bruise on the woman’s face and the way the man looked at her like he did his hand, and other moments where details gave the characters the strength to move the story without the metaphor. I think that I got caught up in the instructional part of this piece, I was too busy trying to understand what all the little details were meant to tell me to ever enjoy them. Even after reading it again, and again before I wrote this, I found that I was too busy trying to sort the details to appreciate what they were telling me.
I don’t know if it was a function of the style of “No Place for You, My Love”, since I had less trouble with ”A Worn Path”, or if it was just because I liked Old Phoenix more than the nameless man and women. I think part of what gets me through a narrative is the interesting details I first get about the character. It seems like Eudora Wetly is someone I have to read more of to become a better reader if not a better writer.
Inspired by Phoenix Jackson’s walk into town, this is a version of how a younger girl may experience the walk through the forest.
ReplyDeleteThe sunlight glinted through the blankets of leaves overhead, surprising her eyes when they would pop out of the darkness. The gold filtered through the thick layer of branches and landed on the ground in moving patterns. Looking ahead, she could see dust in the air, floating, catching the occasional light. There was no path, no trails. The only map that she could see was the route of fallen trunks or sizable logs that obstructed her way.
Taking a swat at a loud buzzing beside her ear made her stumble. Her foot caught on a patch of tangled weeds, pulling her down. It had rained the night before; the fresh, yet slightly smothering, scent was still palpable in the air. The dirt that had been mud only hours previously had taken on the texture of soft clay. She peeled a patch off of her palm, noticing how the lines of her hand had imprinted the muck to match. After contemplating it for a while in her hands, she laid the small brown bit of soil to dry on a decaying stump a couple feet away. She would find it on her way back, after it had time to solidify.