Eudora Welty is an author concerned with relationships between human beings. Throughout A Curtain of Green and Other Stories, The Wide Net and Other Stories, and The Golden Apples, Welty's characters search for ways in which to establish and sustain viable bonds. Particularly problematic are the relationships between opposite sexes. I argue that Welty uses communication as a tool for sustaining a relationship in her early work. I further argue that when her stories provide mostly negative outcomes, Welty moves on to a illuminate the possibility and subsequent failure of relationships via innocence in the natural world. Finally, Welty explores, through her characters, the attempt at marginalization and the quest for relationships outside the culture of the South.

Eudora Welty's short story "Flowers for Marjorie" appears in A Curtain of Green and Other Stories, her first volume of collected stories published in 1941. Since the story's publication, literary scholars have interpreted the protagonist's murder of his wife, and the unusual events that follow, in terms of somatic realities that inform the text. This thesis is a psychoanalytic rereading/rewriting of "Flowers for Maijorie" that attempts to analyze its text as a possible dream narrative. By psychoanalytically rereading/rewriting the narrative in this story as a possible dream narrative, this thesis will attempt to demonstrate how the reader might experientially break through its previous resistance to interpretation, which should encourage a better understanding of the story's narrative ambiguities. The originality of this examination lies in its detailed analysis of the story's text from a psychoanalytic economy, thus providing perhaps the most detailed analysis of its text to date.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2006. / Title from title screen. Audrey Goodman, committee chair; Pearl Mchaney, Christopher Kocela, committee members. Electronic text (99 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Apr. 25, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-99).

Eudora Welty and Wallace Stevens share important aesthetic beliefs, especially regarding uses of the creative imagination by artists in acts of creation and characters in acts of living. A close reading of seventeen of Welty's stories, accompanied by references to related ideas in many of Stevens' poems, reveals how the imagination functions as epistemology and eucharist, while governing the shape of individual human views of the quotidian. The more abstract patterns of thought in their later works seem to move Welty closer to belief in a world beyond the quotidian than they do Stevens.

ASPECTS OF KING MACLAIN IN EUDORA WELTY’S THE GOLDEN APPLES by James Shimkus Under the Direction of Pearl A. McHaney ABSTRACT Much of the scholarship on Eudora Welty’s The Golden Apples focuses on Welty’s use of folklore and myth, particularly as presented in several of W. B. Yeats’s poems. The character King MacLain is most often associated with Zeus, Perseus, and Aengus. A close examination of King MacLain’s development during Welty’s composition and revision of The Golden Apples reveals associations between King and other figures from myth and folklore, including Odin, Loki, Finn MacCool, Brer Rabbit, the King of the Wood from James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough, and several types of Irish fairies. The many layers of allusion revealed by studying King MacLain suggest that close studies of other characters in The Golden Apples will illustrate the complexity and scope of Welty’s story-cycle. INDEX WORDS: Eudora Welty, The Golden Apples, King MacLain, Celtic myth, Finn MacCool, Brer Rabbit, The Golden Bough

Eudora Welty’s sense of place is often discussed by scholars, but they have limited their discussions of place in Welty’s texts to place as region or, more specifically, the South. In so doing, Welty is often pigeonholed as a regionalist writer. Looking at the home when considering place makes Welty’s texts more universal and appealing to readers of all regions and countries. Every individual either has a home or longs for one; all understand the pull toward a home of some kind. Using the theoretical lens of social and psychological theories of space, place, and the home, this study presents a close reading of the homes in Eudora Welty’s Delta Wedding and The Optimist’s Daughter. In addition, archival research from the Eudora Welty collection at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History aids in understanding how drafting the stories and the ways in which the stories evolved add to a reading of home in the texts. In her famous essay “Place in Fiction,” Welty asks, “What place has place in fiction?” (781). In analyzing the role of the home in Welty’s fiction, the reader must ask: What place has the home in fiction? Analyzing the homes in Delta Wedding and The Optimist’s Daughter reveals the characters’ identities – both individual and collective identities, and in so doing, it allows the reader to better understand the motives behind the characters’ actions and reactions.

This study seeks to question old and common misconceptions concerning the american literary genre Southern Gothic. By using the carnival theory, the theory about the "grotesque" by Mikhail Bakhtin, this study seeks to explain and reach a better understanding of some works defined as Southern Gothic - so called because of the significance that is attributed in the genre to the geographical location in the southern United states. This study analyzes carnivalesque transgression in short story collections by Flannery O´Connor, Eudora Welty and Dorothy Allison, and the main purpose is to investigate if the genre really is as dark as it is often described by critics; pessimistic, absurdly shocking and without any affirmation regarding the beauty and strength of life.  Transgression is here defined as the transgression made by fictional characters when their bodies and their actions refuses to conform to the norms established by "the official world". By using Bachtins terminology my main thesis is to investigate positive and life-affirming transgression in A Good Man is Hard to Find, A Curtain of Green and Trash. The study further investigates the ways in which the bodies of the fictional characters become grotesque and in what way the characters through their behaviour become carnivalesque. The short stories are also compared with eachother from both a tematic and historic perspective: can changes through time be observed? Does the grotesque form or expression change in any way from Welty to Allison? The conclusion of the study is that both grotesque and carnivalesque forms can be found in the short stories, and it can be considered carnivalesue in a true Bakhtinian way, as both positive and affirming. The study also finds that the grotesque tends to become more positive and life-affirming through time.

Eudora Welty is well-known for her many works of fiction and non-fiction, but not known for her works for the theater. In the summer of 1948 Welty moved to New York and wrote, in collaboration with another writer, a musical revue entitled What Year Is This? Only one of the sketches, “Bye-Bye Brevoort,” was ever produced. This and other sketches in the unpublished manuscript deserve to be studied alongside Welty’s other work. These writings provide a window into her love of New York, her vast knowledge of the fine arts, and the evolution of her writing styles. In January of 2010, a reading was staged at the Balzer Theater at Herren’s, Atlanta, Georgia. Audience reaction indicates that these pieces, both songs and skits, deserve more attention.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Tulsa, 1990. / Bibliography: leaves 169-178.

Thesis (M.A.)--Villanova University, 2009. / English Dept. Includes bibliographical references.