A Study Of Eudora Welty’s The Golden Apples In The Context Of American Southern Literature

Eudora Welty (1909-2001), one of the most outstanding American southern women writers in the20th century, is acknowledged as the master of short stories in America for her brilliant achievement in short fiction creation. The Golden Apples (1949), the work Welty loved most, is a representative work of her consummate artistry in short story writing. Witnessing the vicissitudes of a fictitious town called Morgana in Mississippi during a period of over forty years, The Golden Apples depicts the pursuits and disillusionments of two generations, vividly describes the drastic changes of Southern life, and reveals the disintegration of traditional Southern Myth in conflict with the modernization and urbanization.In light of Welty’s identity as a distinguished southern female writer, this thesis tries to interpret The Golden Apples in the context of American southern literature, examining the Welty’s inheritances and innovations of southern literary traditions and her ingenious combination of both. The southern literary traditions or the unique features of southern literature include a strong sense of history, the importance of place, a mixed feeling towards race and slavery, a nostalgic complex, the use of gothic and grotesque elements and the use of mythology and folklores, etc.Interpreting The Golden Apples from the aspects of women, family and mythology, we can easily find out the social changes of the South. Through a close reading of The Golden Apples, it can be discovered that the small town Morgana can be seen as the miniature of the southern society in the first half of20th century. Welty presents a picture where the Myth of Southern Lady and the Southern Family Romance has been deconstructed, the old South has disintegrated, the traditions and values of the old South has been abandoned confronting the impact of modernization and urbanization. Welty points out that modern southerners would find their golden apples by portraying her characters in a persistent and brave quest for freedom, independence, love and self-fulfillment.