Eudora Welty's The Bride of the Innisfallen

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Eudora Welty's The Bride of the Innisfallen

Suzanne Marrs' critical essay, "Place and displaced in Eudora Welty's The

Bride of the Innisfallen," makes the claim that "Welty's increased sense of self-

confidence as a writer was a determining factor in the new patterns her stories

would follow. [Welty's] travel, for extended periods and to faraway lands

influenced her fiction in dramatic ways" (Marrs 1). This statement is true.

Previously the setting for the majority of Welty's writing took place in the place

she knew the best, her home. It seems that Welty was finally able to branch out

and expand her horizons and not stay confined to areas which were familiar and

comfortable for her to write about.

The essay attempts to relate Welty's character Circe to Welty herself stating

that "Circe desires to become a Welty-like wanderer and transcend the limited

roles that have been available to her (4). While this seems to be a reasonable

comparison, this is probably not what Welty was trying to accomplish. Many feel

they have found Welty in many of her writings, but that is not unusual since the

author is the one thinking of what the characters are going to do and say.

Welty's characters may seem to be a shadow of her but if they are, or resemble

Welty's life in any way, this is by accident and was not something Welty was

trying to do on purpose. This is not to say that Welty does not draw from her

experiences. "The Bride of the Innisfallen" draws from Welty's journey from

London to Ireland (5). Authors almost always draw from their own experiences.

Looking at Welty's earlier work this is apparent from her setting in Jackson, her

hometown. Even though the setting may be familiar to her, this does not mean

that the characters in the book are supposed to be her.

Marrs says that in "Going to Naples" Welty wrote herself in a sense into the

story. The comparison is made that like Welty the character Miss Crosby was an

"unattached lady who could not speak a word of Italian"(5). True that Eudora

Welty may be using the character of Miss Crosby to deal with her own personal

experience, but more importantly Welty is drawing from new experiences to

adapt to her writing. No matter how many similarities Miss Crosby is not Eudora

Welty. Welty is simply writing about what she knows.

Not to totally discredit all of Marrs' comparisons, there certainly are many areas

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