A Visit of Charity, by Eudora Welty

Eudora Welty at the Wikipedia

A Curtain of Green at the Wikipedia

A Visit of Charity, character analysis

A Visit of Charity, video

BIOGRAPHY

She was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1909, and died when she was 92.
Jackson is a city now with more 70 % of Afroamerican people, while in the 60s it was the other way round; so the city has experienced big changes in demography and, accordingly, in politics.
Eudora Welty lived all her life in Jackson, save when she studied at Columbia University, New York.
She had a calm life in Jackson, despite all the racial problems, so her stories contrast vividly with the stories by Faulkner or by Richard Wright.
As a child, she was an insatiable reader and she wrote her stories without any particular encouragement. She started writing for a Southern magazine and then, thanks to the persistence of a literary agent, for the Atlantic Monthly and for The New Yorker.
She won the Pulitzer Prize when she was 64 years old for her novel The Optimist Daughter. 
She wrote mainly short stories, but also novels and her autobiography. Besides, she was a photographer and published a book of photograhs about the Great Depression.

A VISIT OF CHARITY

It is a short story from her book A Curtain of Green, published when she was 32. The book includes her first published story, Death of a Travelling Salesman.

The story tells us about a Campfire Girl who pays a visit a to an Old Ladies Home, as a part or her duties as a member of the youth organization, a visit which is going to get her some points in her score. But what people live and how the live in a Home comes as a surprise for her.

QUESTIONS

Why does she compare the Home to a block of ice?
Campfire Girl: have you belonged to an organization when you were young? What do you know / think of the Boy Scouts, for example?
What do you think about the contrast between the nurse’s cold appearance and her “sea-wave” air?
Why does the Campfire Girl have to pay a visit to some (any) old lady?
Gestures: What are their meaning? For instance, the girl pushing her hair behind her ear; the nurse looking at her watch...
The “waves” appear again: “she was walking on waves”. Is there any relationship between the wave on the nurse’s head and the waves on the linoleum?
"The hall smelt like the interior of a clock": what does this image suggest to you?
There’s an identification between old ladies and sheep, but also they are compared to harpies. Why?
What is the effect of the nurse saying “there are two”?
What is the feeling created by the room’s description?
The two ladies don’t agree about the flowers: why? Did the girl know about the flowers?
What expression suggests a clog in the throat?
How does the narrator show the girl’s anxiety?
What can be the meaning of the cameo pin?
What was the matter with Addie? Why was she so angry today?
It was the first time such a thing had happened to Marian: what was this thing?
What is the meaning of “That’s Addie for you”?
What kind of magazine was Field & Stream?
Do you think the nurse’s invitation to Marian to have lunch there is for real? Why?
Why did she hide an apple before going in the Home? And why did she make a big bite out of it at the end of the story?

VOCABULARY

Home (in context), whitewashed, mittens, awry, propelled (propeller), counterpane, square smile, my (in context), multiflora cineraria, ailing, comfort shoes, rigmarole, tan (gum), crow (in context), nickel

"You can't learn a nigger to argue"

I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there warn't no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of any nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other kings, and let Solomon slide. I told about Louis XVI that got his head cut off in France long time ago; and about his little boy the dolphin, that would 'a' been a king, but they took and shut him up in jail, and some say he died there.
"Po' little chap."

"But some says he got out and got away, and come to America."

"Dat's good! But he'll be pooty lonesome—dey ain' no kings here, is dey, Huck?"

"No."

"Den he cain't git no situation. What he gwyne to do?"

"Well, I don't know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them learns people how to talk French."

"Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does?"

"No, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said—not a single word."

"Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?"

"I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a book. S'pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy—what would you think?"

"I wouldn' think nuffn; I'd take en bust him over de head—dat is, if he warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat."

"Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying, do you know how to talk French?"

"Well, den, why couldn't he say it?"

"Why, he is a-saying it. That's a Frenchman's way of saying it."

"Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no mo' 'bout it. Dey ain' no sense in it."

"Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?"

"No, a cat don't."

"Well, does a cow?"

"No, a cow don't, nuther."

"Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?"

"No, dey don't."

"It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from each other, ain't it?"

"Course."

"And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different from us?"

"Why, mos' sholy it is."

"Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a Frenchman to talk different from us? You answer me that."

"Is a cat a man, Huck?"

"No."

"Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow a man?—er is a cow a cat?"

"No, she ain't either of them."

"Well, den, she ain't got no business to talk like either one er the yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man?"

"Yes."

"Well, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he talk like a man? You answer me dat!"
I see it warn't no use wasting words—you can't learn a nigger to argue. So I quit.

                        A bit of dialogue between Jim and Huck (from Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain)