Eudora Welty And Jack London Essay Research

Eudora Welty And Jack London Essay, Research Paper

There is a soundless shadow which seems to mirror a gaunt, dark, figure who prowls

the busy airdromes, soundless streets, and even the cosy places. There is no get awaying this adult male,

the destroyer. No walls are thick plenty to close him out, no mountain high plenty to

hedge his wrath. He is decease & # 8230 ; he is predetermined & # 8230 ; he is unpredictable & # 8230 ; to some he is

merely intriguing. The wish to populate, the inability to believe in one? s ain endangering decease,

the cosmopolitan human religion in one? s ain unsusceptibility to death- all these are factors which

contribute to the sweeping popularity of Jack London and Eudora Welty? s work. Peoples

are intrigued by decease because it can non be explained. Yet, London and Welty have

comforted these frights and machinations by leting them to come in the distorted head of a deranged

liquidator. These writers provide them with the replies they lack and supply them with

the ability to penetrate the unfathomable. They confront the horrors of decease and stress

the world of its looming presence. Consequently, fulfilling the captivation their readers

crave. Jack London and Eudora Welty have planted a seed of fright in the Black Marias of many

people through their graphic description of decease, nevertheless their motivations techniques, and

life styles have allowed them to make a diverseness of attacks to portraying bloodshed.

Eudora Welty and Jack London come from really different walks of life. Welty was

born on April 13, 1909 in a little town in Jackson, Mississippi. Her community and

childhood experiences greatly influenced her manner of composing as an grownup. The love and

support from her parents and her close knit community turning up inspired her life long

wonder of people and acute attending to detail. The accent placed on instruction and

reading early in life enriched her life as she grew older, and influenced her determination to

go a author. Turning up, she recalls memories of being read to which grew into a

passion for the written word at an early age. Influenced and supported by her parents,

Welty attended the Mississippi State College for Women in 1925. After two old ages of

instruction in Mississippi, she decided to reassign to the University of Wisconsin. In 1929

she graduated from the U of W with a BA in English. Under the counsel of her male parent,

she attended Columbia University Business School. Where she studied advertisement as a

backup for her authorship. Her male parent thought it was of import to cultivate extra accomplishments,

in the event her composing calling failed.

In 1933 she began composing for newspapers. This allowed her to go a more

all-around author. Equally good as, provide her with experiences she would subsequently establish her

literature on. During these old ages, she met small success and much defeat. However in

1941, her first aggregation of short narratives, A Curtain of Green and Other Narratives was

published. Before long, the populace began sing Eudora Welty as a noteworthy writer, and

the demand for her work began to swell. Her successful short narratives had created a

hungriness for longer plants. In 1942 her friend John Woodburn encouraged her to compose The

Robber Bridegroom, , her first novel. From that point on her calling as a author flourished,

and she began providing the populace with an array of fictional literature. She wrote many

essays, critical reappraisals, and she even wrote for theatre. She has contributed to the

popularity of show concern with such dramas and musicals as: The Ponder Heart, and What

Year is This? Furthermore, her published autobiography One Writer? s Beginning, was

immediately embraced by America ; and has become a best-seller. Welty? s authorship is riddled

with civilization and experience chiefly due to her place town of Jackson Mississippi. Other

civilizations contribute to the assortment of her work, but overall her Mississippi heritage and

pride will ever be heard through the voice of her authorship ( ? Eudora Welty? 939-40 ) .

The little? southern bell? town of Jackson is stat mis from the cheery shores of Jack

London? s place of birth in California. And his ability to compose can non be attributed to big

universities or extended instruction. Jack London was a ego educated adult male who learned

from his milieus. His instruction bloomed from his experience on the California

spreads and tuging with the working category communities of Oakland. His environment

was his wise man and nourished his mastermind to compose literature. Unable to do a dent in the

magazine mercantile establishment, London decided to acquire rich fast by traveling to the Yukon to seek for

gold. London along with his inundation of dreams fled to the Klondike Gold Rush. He

returned in 1897 a hapless adult male, but his wealth came in a different signifier of currency. The

cherished memories and the integrity of his experience outweighed any sum of gold he

could hold brought back. He had so struck gold while in Yukon, and these nuggets

of escapade became the foundation of his celebrity and glorification in ulterior old ages. London found

that the peoples involvement ballad in his experiences, observations, and barbarous word picture of the

cursed Northland.

However, his adventuresome yearss bit by bit faded off. In 1900 London settled

down in Oakland and married Elizabeth May Maddern. They started a household and had two

girls. But in 1905 their matrimony came to an terminal and they were divorced. Wasting

no clip, he married Chairmain Kitteredge within that same twelvemonth. With Charmain by his

side, London set out on a seven twelvemonth ocean trip. However, London? s hapless wellness was

mightier than his dream ; and he was forced to abandon his expedition. London spent the

last old ages of his life constructing a scientifically run spread composite in Glen Ellen, Sonoma

County, California. His decease is still a enigma to this twenty-four hours. At age 45 on November

22, 1916 Jack London died at his spread in California. Leaving behind footmarks that will

cast America? s literary dirt. He has entertained his readers for old ages and will go on to

do so for coevalss. His literature is cherished all over the universe and has been translated

into over 50 linguistic communications. It will take a mighty blow to strike hard him off the high base

which many inspired authors have placed him on. Many outstanding literary figures look up

to him with esteem and regard. He will go on to act upon literature as

coevalss study his legendary footmarks he has left behind. ( ? Jack London?

525-528 )

Eudora Welty and Jack London? s manner of composing becomes a usher on a journey to

the unfathomable deepnesss of one? s being. The distance between two words can cross from

seashore to seashore, and their work becomes a span which joins fiction and world. Eudora

Welty stages most of her narratives in little towns centered around an guiltless society blind

to the wrath which is about to strike them. She plucks the reader out of their day-to-day

modus operandi and topographic points them in a waste community plagued by the ruthless mayhem of decease. In

? Clytie? Welty begins the saga by depicting a normal urban small town and a typical yearss

events. ? A small male child kicked his bare heels into the sides of his mule, which proceeded

easy through the town toward the state? ( Welty 144 ) . However the ordinary is

rapidly overcome by the desolation of decease and the mental upset of a crazed household

life in this town. In? Flowers for Marjorie? she shows how the metropolis is incognizant of the

slaying which has taken topographic point, and to everybody else, it is merely another twenty-four hours. ? He set his

chapeau on heterosexual and walked through the crowd of kids who surged about leaping rope,

intonation and leaping around him with their lips hanging apart? ( Welty 179 ) . Welty

depict the impact decease and slaying can do as an full town becomes involved

when Death visits their conventional community in? The Hitch-Hickers? . ? They was tryin?

to take your auto, and down the street one of? mutton quads like to break the other one? s caput broad

op? m with a bottle. Everybody? s out at that place. Expressions like they heard the disturbance? ( Welty

120 ) . By making a common scene, Welty emphasizes the impression that decease has no

barriers, and he will strike anyplace.

Jack London uses a different ambiance to convey his image of decease. He has

chosen the huge landscape of Alaska to exemplify the way decease travels. He emphasis

the countrified, barbarian slayings which occur in Alaskan small towns. Even out in the center of

nowhere Death will happen a victim to trap. In? Which Make Men Remember? , London

invites decease into a bare cabin inhabited by two runawaies seeking to get away the

effects of slaying a adult male in a nearby town. ? He pulled the trigger. Fortune did

non whirl, but cheery San Francisco dimmed and faded, and as the sunbright snow turned

black and blacker, he breathed his last imprecation on the Opportunity he had misplayed?

( London 172 ) . The communities of Alaskan Indian small towns besides come face to face with

decease. As a blood-bath breaks out during a peace meeting. The wall painting of decease covers the

metropolis walls, every bit good as, the white snowcapped mountains of Alaska, there is no get awaying

him.

The description of characters adds assortment to their diverse authorship. Welty utilizations

weak, guiltless victims, while London? s victims are unafraid, powerful work forces. This causes

compassion to ooze into the Black Marias of Welty? s readers, and pride to swell in those of

London? s hearers. Welty? s usage of description has the ability to overmaster the senses and,

force her reader to go one with the characters. London usage of poetic speechmaker

transforms the reader into a little kid. He writes as if he were stating a bed clip narrative,

and lulls the little kid into a fantasy universe of foreign imposts and chartless district.

Having two really different phases of course gives rise to different subjects and secret plans

depicted by the writers. In most of Welty? s work, she illustrates decease as an unneeded

terminal to life. Death is an component to life which is tragic and improper. In? Flowers for

Marjorie? there was no justifiable logic as to why Howard killed his married woman. In? The

Hitch-Hickers? the logical thinking behind the slaying is non explained, therefore to the reader it

seems wholly unneeded. London? s subject which trickles throughout many of his

narratives is the doctrine of endurance of the fittest. The battle for life, and the competition

for life is indispensable to survival in the rugged mountains of Alaska. In? The Death of a

Host? , it is obvious that it was the responsibility of the main warriors to kill one another in order

to keep the pride of their folk ; and to demo the power of a head. In? Which Makes

Work force Remember? , decease becomes a game to see who can kill foremost. It is inevitable that

person must decease in order to sign his ain life. London emphasizes the subject of award

in decease. The lone honest thing to make was to kill and be killed in? The Death of a

Host? . Had the blood bath non ended with Legion being dead, so he would hold been

a shame to his folk. In? Clytie? , Welty depicts the mentally disturbed adult females? s decease as

an ultimatum to the atrocious life she was forced to partake of. There was no award in her

decease. However there was no award in her life either.

Jack London and Eudora Welty have written these superb plants to actuate

some emotion within their readers. Welty characteristically tries to bring on commiseration and

compassion as her primary motivater. She makes her victims delicate and weak, which

causes one to savor the acrimonious decease the hapless victims are confronting. In? Clytie? , Welty

takes great attention to depict the chief characters suffering life which she detests. Clytie

longs for beauty, young person, and love to radiate her dark psyche, nevertheless at that place seems to be no

prognosis for sunlight. In a concluding province of complete hopelessness, she throws herself into a

trough of H2O upon run intoing her deplorable contemplation. Likewise in? Flowers For

Marjorie? the vision of Marjorie? s limb helpless organic structure slumped over the window seal is

etched in one? s head. One? s bosom is marinated in the description of her atrocious decease.

Tenderness and compassion floods at the idea of the powerless immature female parent,

which evades one? s emotions. Jack London is taking for a much different emotion to jump

out at his readers. He injects them with the exhilaration, award, and escapade which leads

up to the minutes before decease. As he describes the blood-bath of heads in? The Death

of a Legion? , he causes adrenaline to get the better of any moral duty to the character

being killed. He forms an image in one? s head that glorifies the award in decease, and brings

out the crude adventurer in one? s inner being. In? Which Makes Men Remember? ,

London emphasize the bang and athletics in butchering another adult male ; go forthing no idea to

the existent event.

The colorblind universe had ne’er seen colour until Jack London? s colorful authorship

opened their eyes to a new universe. He describes the gold haste utilizing a bird’s-eye word picture

of the ferociousness and barbarous amusement of decease. His image proved the exclusive importance to a

adult male during this clip was survival and money. Small thought or attention was given to the

saneness of a adult male every bit long as he could last, and he had money to throw in on a fire hook

game. He describes the northern gambler, and his consciousness that the life of a gambler,

particularly a dishonest one, would be short lived. ? Life? s a skin-game & # 8230 ; I ne’er had half a

opportunity & # 8230 ; I was faked in my birth and flimflammed with my female parent? s milk. The dies were

loaded when she tossed the box, and I was born to turn out the loss. ? Chance is a gamblers

best friend or worst enemy. In add-on to survival, London emphasizes a subject of

laterality and sovereignty in? The God of His Fathers? . Sovereignty over adult male by nature

is London? s predominate doctrine. His theory of command was the thought that adult male will

ne’er be able to get the better of the power of nature. In the terminal, jurisprudence and harmoniousness will predominate

link the? white-man? and nature. In his earlier authorship he struggled to portray

single individuality, so he turned his attending to? blood brotherhood? ( Geismar 264 )

London? s does non make his characters from factual people from his yesteryear: they are

supermans, unidentified heroes who lived during a unafraid clip in American history. Old ages

subsequently theses brave work forces are being honored through heroic poem narratives. ( Pattee 258 )

Race domination becomes a critical issue in many of London? s short narratives. The

foremost narrative in which race became a dominant subject was? The God of His Fathers. ? Jack

London writes, ? Race is the true God & # 8230 ; ? But, his doctrine is reconstructed in his later

plants. Children of the Frost is the beginning of a new moving ridge of thoughts for London. It is

the decease of racial individuality. Mastery is murdered as London recants his belief that order

and harmoniousness have the ability to suppress decease.

? My undertaking which I am seeking to accomplish is, by the power of the written word, to

do you hear, to do you feel-it is, before all, to do you see. ? ( Pattee 258 )

London? s ability of description created his self-proclaimed repute of a realist. It was a

quality and manner of composing that was meaningful to him. However, many critics believe

that London? s vivid description created an unrealistic image of how things truly were

during that clip. They argue that he exaggerated the beauty, and disguised much of the

truth. ( Pattee 258 ) London incorporated the literary technique of pragmatism into the

storyboard of calamities. These narratives inspire both fright and commiseration. The events are sudden

and portray functions being reversed to humble the hero and demo him his ignorance. ( Pattee

258 )

Eudora Welty manipulates scenes, experiences and characters in her short narratives

in order to elicit the readers consciousness of the panic which shadows immorality. In? Clytie? she

vividly describes the scene where the old amah drowns herself in a barrel of rain H2O.

She paints a realistic episode which will skulk in the subconscience of every reader, and

work stoppage fright in the Black Marias of every 1 who witnesses the incident. ( Glenn 471 ) She creates

lifelike scenes and characters in order to supply a connexion to her readers. Her

characters, scenes, and experiences are so ordinary the reader can non spot world from

fiction. She will manufacture events which run parallel to the lives of her reader. ( Glenn 471 )

Welty? s profound tenderness is a focal point in many of her short narratives.

Particularly in? Clytie? where she portrays a deplorable old amah who dwells in a life whom

no one understands or attentions to understand. She is taunted by the beauty of the universe, and

is tortured by the inhuman treatment which this fantastic universe push upon her. Welty? s composing

ever grants commiseration and clemency for those who are seeking love, yet are ne’er able to achieve

this emotion which is indispensable to life. ( Jones 481 ) Many of Welty? s narratives involve

characters who are deprived of something and are populating on the border of life. They view

this lifestyle non as a societal issue, but as merchandise of humanity. They have no desire for

standing within the community, wealths or power, nevertheless they simply aspire for love and

company. Her character? s base at many different topographic points on the latter of success,

nevertheless they portion a common hungriness for love. ( Jones 482 ) Welty has mastered the art of

walking the tightrope. She performs the astonishing reconciliation act of stressing the tenderness

and ferociousness which can populate in the Black Marias of humanity. ( Harris 464 )

In? Flowers for Marjorie? , Welty mystifies the reader and leads them on a journey

which is identical from world or phantasy. She brightly entangles Howard? s

violent dream of killing his married woman into a precession of dry events. The reader is led on a

journey, unsure if it is truly go oning or if it is Howard? s head running wild. However,

in the terminal world prevails and his married woman? s dead organic structure is the lone dependable truth. ( Hardy 487 )

The descriptive inside informations are non particularly grisly ; she understates, as ever. But, the

blood-terror is unmistakably evoked and the panic of the incomprehensible permeates the

pages. ( Hardy 487 ) Some critics argue that Welty? s tactical strategy in? Flowers for

Marjorie? consequences in a irritating lampoon. The sequence of dry events and confusion of

symbols in the narrative produces confusion. Puting the reader in an unrealistic phantasy universe.

( Hardy 487 ) ? The Hitch-Hikers? , unlike? Flowers for Marjorie? , is non impaired by sarcasm

and semblance. Welty furnishes the reader with a simple bizarre secret plan which leads up to a

cryptic decision. ( Hardy 487 ) Welty surpasses the imaginativeness of most writers

through her doggedness of hope which embodies the characters. This hope leads to the

ability of concrete affair to get the better of and digest through the decease of their users.

( Hardy 488 ) . In? Flowers for Marjorie? , a corsage of deceasing flowers immediately become

alive once more as the little misss run to set them in their hair. ( Hardy 488 )

Welty? s composing embody many racial undertones, nevertheless she masks this motive by

stressing the presence of African American humanity. She has mastered the art of

finely capitalising the construct that African American? s are the beginning of many religious

roadblocks. However, she fails to acknowledge that these loads are indirect to the

history and civilization of the white adult male. ( Hardy 488 ) .

The plants of these two great writers have presented people of present and past

with different mentalities on decease through manner, subjects, and motivation. Although their positions

are clearly personal, they both tackle the kernel of adult males greatest fright and captivation.

Their positions represent a certain epoch of history which deserves to be passed down from

coevals to coevals through their words. Jack London and Eudora Welty engage in a

conflict to assist people penetrate the unfathomable enigma of decease. They have become the

trailblazer? s in the journey to research the weaving backroads? Death? has traveled.

843

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1890-1915 1953: Rpt. in Short Story Criticism Ed. Thomas Votteler. vol.4. Detroit:

Gale Research Company, 1990. 264-7.

Glenn, Eunice. ? Fantasy in the Fiction of Eudora Welty. ? Critics and Essaies on Modern Fiction:

Representing the Achievment of Modern American and British Critics 1920-1951 1952:

506-17. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism Eds. Laurie Lanzen Harris and Sheila Fitzgerald.

vol.1. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1988. 470-3.

Hardy, John Edward. ? The Achievement of Eudora Welty. ? Southern Humanities Review vol. 2.

No. 3 Summer ; 1968: 269-78. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism Eds. Laurie Lanzen Harris

and Sheila Fitzgerald. vol.1. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1988. 487-8.

Harris, Laurie Lanzen and Sheila Fitzgerald. ? Eudora Welty. ? Short Story Criticism vol.1.

Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1988. 464-5.

Jones, Alun R. ? The World of Love: The Fiction of Eudora Welty. ? The Creative Present: Notes

on Contemporary American Fiction 1963: Rpt. in Short Story Criticism Eds. Laurie Lanzen

Harris and Sheila Fitzgerald. vol.1. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1988.