slap has seemed like “ kissing the cheek of the dead, ” because their common mourning
for their child had estranged them. It is not until section V that Eugene can articulate
his specifi c grievance: “ Your little girl … said, ‘ Mama, my throat hurts me, ’ and she
was dead in three days. You expected her mother would watch a fever, while you were
at the offi ce. … But you never spoke of it, did you? ”
Several voices across the city contribute to the story ’ s theme of barriers or divisive-
ness, versus ways of escape or openness. Walking by a bar, Eugene hears, “ Open the
door, Richard! ” The streetcar conductor shouts “ Divisadero! ” The ordinarily comfort-
ing sight of fi re escapes – everywhere in San Francisco since the Great Fire – through
associational logic morph into images of entrapment, which cause him to pause
outside the bar, to hear again the song about openings. The song brings a memory
of music from back home in Mississippi. This older memory and his next recollection
of his present crisis in which he has struck his wife, together with his identifi cation
with “ a sprawled old winehead sleeping up here far away from his kind, ” all combine
to prompt an emotional crisis – a feeling of “ secret tenderness toward his twin, Ran
MacLain, whom he had not seen for half his life. … Was all well with Ran? … For
… he might have done some reprehensible thing. ” Eugene “ half fainted upon the
body of the city, the old veins, the mottled skin of pavement. Perhaps the soft grass
in which little daisies opened would hold his temples and put its eyes to his. ” Here
is another realistic image that transforms itself into a lyric one: a surrealistic image
of city streets personifi ed as an older (lover ’ s? father ’ s?) body that Eugene imagines
holding him as he faints. But it is also a psychologically realistic mind - link with his
twin, who, in “ The Whole World Knows, ” actually does a reprehensible thing. Not
to be ignored are the several references to “ half ” things ( “ half his life, ” “ half fainted, ”
“ half - lifted across the street ” ), which suggest the loss incurred by separating twins,
but also the possibility that he has lived a sort of half - life since his self - exile to San
Francisco. That this is the low point in Eugene ’ s day is confi rmed by the death wish
at the end of the passage, for the grass and daisies are imagined as covering and press-
ing down on him, as if he were in the grave. Carey Wall also sees him dealing with
death in this story: “ Eugene MacLain enters the season of dying, ” Wall says, “ [He]
assimilates his daughter Fan ’ s death … as a part of his own death … [which, however,
is also] to assimilate her love of life. … When the Spaniard whirls him about at Land ’ s
End, he and Eugene retrieve the child in Eugene … [and] life is validated within the
inevitable movement toward death ” (Wall 103).
The crisis will pass quickly for Eugene, much as it does for Mrs. Larkin in “ A
Curtain of Green, ” at the touch of rain. But Eugene has the additional touch of the
Spaniard, who, acting the part of the parent/lover, “ patted him and straightened him
Eudora
Welty
291
up. … And rain fell on them. ” Then, as he and the Spaniard climb over rocks and
look out over the sea in a beating wind, Eugene remembers a recurring dream, in
which he is in bed with a sleeping Emma. In his dream he seems to be trying to
swallow the huge stem of a cherry. This passage and the succeeding one, in which
the Spaniard holds Eugene up in the air, combine to precipitate the moment outside
of time that brings relief for both men. The dream ’ s phallic image of the huge and
growing stem in Eugene ’ s mouth, together with the exhilaration of the men at the
edge of the cliffs, has prompted several readings that demonstrate sensual/sexual
content. “ This is Eugene ’ s real homecoming, ” Mark says, “ his discovery of his own
body, his own sexuality, and his release from social convention. … Eugene thinks ‘ My
dear love comes,
’
and the Spaniard makes a loud emotional cry.
”
(
Dragon ’ s Blood
225
–
6).
Mortimer
, while acknowledging the sensual content, also sees Eugene
’
s
Perseus -
like wrestling with the Minotaur
-
like Spaniard as occasion for Eugene
’
s
regeneration ( Daughter of the Swan 102). 17
However, another part of the sensual content of the dream is Eugene ’ s feeling that
he has “ the world on his tongue. ” This image of a round object on the tongue recalls
Welty ’ s description of a very sensual connection she made as a child between herself,
the natural world, and words to describe that world. It is the moon she remembers
in One Writer ’ s Beginnings : “ The word ‘ moon ’ came into my mouth as though fed me
out of a silver spoon. Held in my mouth the moon became a word. It had the round-
ness of a Concord grape Grandpa took off his vine and gave me to suck out of its skin
and swallow whole, in Ohio ” (10). Until his hilltop exultation, it has been only in
dreams that Eugene has experienced sensual passion; in this dream, Welty has given
him the tactile vision of a budding artist.
For a moment, at least, Eugene fi nds relief in self - expression – to a stranger on the
cliff; but the Spaniard himself remains a mystery. Eugene has realized that the guitar-
ist ’ s seeming detachment during last night ’ s concert was only “ the outer semblance
of passion. ” Now, as he lights a cigarette on the cliff overlooking the Pacifi c Ocean,
the Spaniard ’ s face muscles “ grouped themselves in hideous luxuriousness ” ; and in
the midst of images like those describing the passionate jazz musician in Welty ’ s
“ Powerhouse, ” the guitarist erupts in “ a terrible recital ” : “ a bullish roar opened out
of him. ” Eugene, who has never spoken of his own sorrow, is astonished at “ a man
laying himself altogether bare like that. ” Yet the passage suggests a profound link
between the two men: they share the very human traits not only of repressed passion,
but also of doubleness, such that they seem almost alter egos, or mirror images, in
terms of passion and control in their lives. The guitarist pours his passion into his
music, but in a highly controlled fashion; whereas Eugene, who spends his days regu-
lating clock time, manages his emotions in a way that David Kaplan has identifi ed
as
“
silent outbursts [which] occur in Eudora Welty
’
s fi ction when a character
’
s
impulse to strong expression is checked by circumstances that make such expression
impossible. ” 18 In other words, they are safely voiced in the text as narrated thoughts,
or either in words spoken to himself or to one who cannot possibly understand him.
Eugene ’ s astonishment comes from his own lifelong inability to “ lay bare ” the desires
292
Ruth D. Weston
of his heart, much less pursue them passionately, as does the Spanish guitarist. At
last, after the Spaniard is “ fl ung out at [him], like the apples of Atalanta, ” he becomes
both the storyteller and his own listener; and he achieves a purging oral outburst.
The Spaniard has also shown him how to express joy, but he cannot sustain it. The
story ends not in this moment of expansive openness, but back in Eugene and Emma ’ s
upstairs apartment, where nothing has changed. His extraordinary experience goes
unnoticed, except for his missing hat. The fi nal, overriding, image is not of a sensual
experience for Eugene but, rather, of his sitting meekly at the kitchen table, listening
to his wife and Mrs. Herring, and watching Emma “ pop the grapes in. ” “ Music from
Spain ” is a major reason Thomas J. McHaney calls The Golden Apples “ Eudora Welty ’ s
chronicle of human longing ” (113).
Welty employs the lyric/realistic technique in both short stories and novels, as I
have argued elsewhere ( “ Lyric Novelist ” 29 – 31). Especially in the works of her matu-
rity, this technique contributes to the aesthetic structure of a story: delineating,
through visible images that relate to inner states, the curve of emotion that is traversed
by a character who is in some way an outsider, and who is often outside of ordinary
time. The voice of the storyteller, as it rises and falls with that curve, and with the
corresponding environment and terrain of outer reality, defi nes the shape of the story.
In her essay “ Words into Fiction, ” Welty says, rather mysteriously, about fi ction in
general, “ The words follow the contours of some continuous relationship between
what can be told and what cannot be told ” ( Eye of the Story 143 – 4). Understanding
the techniques of lyrical realism, aesthetic structure, and the storyteller ’ s many voices
enables the reader to negotiate the barriers of Welty ’ s narrative obstructions and sense
the true aesthetic shape of the story. Neither is it beside the point to remember that,
whether in fi ction or non - fi ction, Welty is always writing about the artistic process
and the passionate artist as outside observer of the world.
Notes
1
For accounts of Welty ’ s publishing history,
thetics of Place (1994; rpt. Columbia: Univer-
see Noel Polk, Eudora Welty: A Bibliography
sity of South Carolina Press, 1997).
of Her Work
(Jackson: University Press of 4
See especially her One Time, One Place (New
Mississippi, 1994); Suzanne Marrs,
The
York: Random House, 1971) and Photographs
Welty Collection: A Guide to the Eudora Welty
(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi,
Manuscripts and Documents at the Mississippi
1989).
Department of Archives and History (Jackson:
5
Schmidt (57 – 8) sees in this image “ a pro-
University Press of Mississippi, 1988); and
foundly threatening vision of the female body
Michael Kreyling , Author and Agent .
–
especially its genitalia
–
as a devouring
2
Lohafer, “ Introduction to Part I. ” In Lohafer
landscape. ” He also notes that Howard ’ s sense
and Clarey, eds., Short Story Theory at a Cross-
of time is artifi cial, while Marjorie ’ s is “ asso-
roads , 3.
ciated with her biorhythms. ” See also Weston ,
3
Quoted in May (51). For an examination of
Gothic Traditions , for a book - length study of
the confl uence between Welty and Chekhov,
Welty ’ s images of entrapment and relevant
see Jan Nordby Gretlund, Eudora Welty ’ s Aes-
narrative techniques.
Eudora
Welty
293
6
Or is the murder imagined, as was the earlier
13
See, for example, Pollack, “ Words Between
violence? See Kreyling,
“
Modernism in
Strangers
”
; and Merrill Maguire Skaggs,
Welty ’ s A Curtain of Green , ” in Turner and
“ Eudora Welty ’ s ‘ I ’ of Memory, ” in Turner
Harding, eds., Critical Essays , 24.
and Harding, eds., Critical Essays , 153 – 65.
7
For an extended analysis of Welty ’ s narrative
14
See Kreyling , Welty
’
s Achievement of Order ,
reticence and altered story expectations in
77 – 105, for an analysis of the organic integ-
her fi nal collection, see Weston,
“
Reticent
rity of The Golden Apples .
Beauty, ” 42 – 58.
15
Mark links this passage with one in Joyce ’ s
8
Mark sees in “ The Winds ” “ not a tale of
Ulysses on the topic of Spanish passion.
choice but a story of female sexual fulfi llment
16
“ He felt … ” was fi rst staged as a work
and power embodied in both of Josie ’ s muses,
in progress for the Eudora Welty Society
the cornetist and Cornella. ”
at the American Literature Association con-
9
Lohafer, “ Preclosure and Story Processing, ” in
ference in San Francisco, in May 2004,
Lohafer and Clarey, eds., Critical Essays , 249.
starring Brenda Currin and Phil Fortenberry,
10
Miller, The Heroine
’
s Text: Readings in the
directed by David Kaplan. A complete
French and English Novel, 1722 – 1782 (New
version of the show was performed at the
York: Columbia University Press, 1980), x.
92nd Street Y in New York City, April 11,
Miller defi nes “ the heroine ’ s text … [as]
2005, under the title of “ A Fire Was In My
a locus of commonplaces about woman
’
s
Head. ”
identity and woman ’ s place … [and thus] the
17
Pitavy - Souques, in “ Technique as Myth, ”
inscription of a female destiny. ”
258
–
68, has brilliantly shown that
The
11
Bowen, quoted in May (123) (ellipses May ’ s);
Golden Apples
as a whole is framed, and
Harris, quoted in May (13
–
14);
Eye of the
given shape and perspective, by both
Story , 90.
Celtic and Greek myth, especially the Perseus
12 Eye of the
Story, 108;
Prenshaw
, ed.,
More
story.
Conversations , 77. Dramatizations include the
18
Kaplan, “ Silent Outbursts and Silenced Out-
Broadway production of The Ponder Heart in
bursts in Eudora Welty ’ s Fiction. ” Unpub-
1956 and a recent PBS movie version of it, as
lished paper, n.d. (2004). Kaplan is an
well
as stage and fi lm versions of many other
independent theatre director and writer (see
stories.
Eye of the Story 105).
References and Further Reading
Cassirer , Ernst. Language and Myth . Trans. Susanne
— — — . “ History and Imagination: Writing
K. Langer. 1946 . Rpt. New York : Dover , 1953.
‘ The Winds. ’ ” Mississippi Quarterly 50 ( 1997 ):
Frye , Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays .
585 – 99 .
1957 . Rpt. Princeton : Princeton University
Lohafer , Susan , and Jo Ellyn Clarey , eds. Short Story
Press , 1990.
Theory at a Crossroads . Baton Rouge : Louisiana
Joyce , James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
State University Press , 1989 .
Man . 1916 . Rpt. in “ A Portrait of the Artist as a
McHaney , Thomas L. “ Eudora Welty and the
Young Man
”
: Text, Criticism and Notes . Ed.
Multitudinous Golden Apples.
” 1973 . Rpt.
Chester G. Anderson . Viking Critical Library.
in Turner and Harding, eds.,
Critical Essays ,
New York : Viking Penguin , 1968.
113 – 41 .
Kreyling , Michael. Eudora Welty
’
s Achievement of Mark , Rebecca. The Dragon ’ s Blood: Feminist Inter-
Order . Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University
textuality in Eudora Welty ’ s “ The Golden Apples . ”
Press , 1980 .
Jackson : University Press of Mississippi , 1994 .
— — — . Author and Agent: Eudora Welty and Diar-
— — — . “ Pierced with Pleasure for the Girls:
muid Russell . New York : Farrar, Straus & Giroux ,
Eudora Welty ’ s ‘ The Winds, ’ ” Journal of Con-
1991 .
temporary Thought 7 ( 1997 ): 107 – 22 .
294
Ruth D. Weston
May , Charles E. The Short Story: The Reality of Arti-
Vande Kieft , Ruth M. “ Further Refl ections on
fi ce . Studies in Literary Themes and Genres, 4.
Meaning in Eudora Welty ’ s Fiction. ” 1982 .
New York : Twayne , 1995 .
Rpt. in Turner and Harding, eds.,
Critical
Mortimer , Gail L. Daughter of the Swan: Love and
Essays , 296 – 309 .
Knowledge in Eudora Welty ’ s Fiction . Athens : Uni-
Wall , Carey. “ Collective Life, Liminality and
versity of Georgia Press , 1994 .
Sexuality in Welty ’ s The Golden Apples ; or
O ’ Connor , Frank . The Lonely Voice: A Study of the
A Companion to the American Short Story Page 64