Awakening In The Changing South: A Thematic Study On Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter

Eudora Welty is a female writer who enjoys great reputation both at home and abroad and holds dominant position among Southern writers. In her fictions and short stories the persistent theme is the disappearance of the Old South and the resultant rise of a new South. In the changing world she demonstrates, her characters are often caught in the dilemma:trying to keep grasping antique and dying traditions, or facing an essentially rootless existence which offers no viable substitute for the old traditions. Her last novel, The Optimist's Daughter, is considered as Welty's best work. Although The Optimist's Daughter receives high popularity and esteem, some critics think that it just focuses on describing the Southern family relationship and lacks the social and political concerns.This thesis is a thematic study on The Optimist's Daughter. The author of this thesis attempts to prove that through the deconstruction of the Southern family romance, and the protagonist's awakening and shaking off the burden of the past, Welty shows her concern for the social, historical and cultural changes that took place in the South. At first, the present author demonstrates the historical source of the Southern family romance and creation of Mckelva family myth in The Optimist's Daughter, and then applies the theory of deconstruction to analyze the dissolution of Mckelva family myth. Finally, the present author points out that Welty exposes the young Southern generation's feeling of alienation and ambivalence in the changing South, enables the protagonist to achieve awakening by understanding the genuine past, and provides her advice on how to face the changed South.