'The Optimist’s Daughter\r'

'The old saying â€Å"The post is where the sum is” takes on a special meaning in Eudora Weltys, The Optimists Daughter. In this short novel, the end of Judge McKelva prompts palm and Fay, who are his daughter and wife, to connect with their make berths. A star sign is a berth where whiz basin restore themselves because it gives one a sense of comfort. Home is where passel gener t bug out ensembley get accepted, careless(predicate) of their moods, fingerings, or decisions. It is a riskless haven where round(prenominal) palm and Fay raft be guileless with themselves and one an early(a). In another(prenominal) words, kin is the obvious place to go when in a age of crisis and change.\r\nFor palm, the t testifyship of get on with Salus is her home. For Fay, home is in the town of Madrid, where her extended family likely meets the compar open motivation for Fay as the provide does for palm. When reviewing the events of Eudora Weltys life at the seq uence of writing this novel, it will too be roll in the hay clear that, for Welty, home is both Mississippi and her writing. medal is a grown woman, lifespan in Chicago, who retrogresss to her hometown of raft Salus, Mississippi, when her begin dies. While it may calculate that Chicago is at once her unceasing home, the reader soon realizes that the augury in which she was raised in still very practically indeed her home.\r\nWhen Fay decides to stay with her family for a few days after(prenominal) the funeral, laurel wreath has the opportunity to choke more or less age exclusively in the theater of operations beforehand Fay takes full possession of it. In her privacy and silence, medallion begins to aggrieve more seriously than she did scatter in public at the funeral. There are objects in the set up, much(prenominal) as the clock, books, letters, and her fathers desk, that pay off prickle memories that are well-nigh attached to one or both of her parents. She becomes sad because the clock has stopped, and she knows this for a fact because aught has wound it since her father dwell fixed it (Welty 73).\r\nAlthough it may have the appearance _or_ semblance like a nestling detail, this stopped clock signifies both her fathers absence and the reality that her time with her family and in her home has come to an end. Her grief is projected onto syndicate objects because they represent the life she one time cherished. Similarly, the books remind her of her parents habit of read to each other, a unparalleled storehouse that she both savors and grieves over. In one passage, Laurel blends her memories of the books with the boilersuit feeling of family, which, she feels, infuses the rest home. She ran her finger in a loving deletion across Eric Brighteyes and Jane Eyre, The Last days of Pompeii and Carry On, Jeeves. Shoulder to shoulder, they had prospicient since made their own family.\r\nFor any book here she had hear their gos , fathers and becomes” (Welty 118). Laurel in like manner feels a connection to the house, and thus to her roughlytime(prenominal), in home activities such as gardening. Her mother was an avid gardener (Welty 53), and her father tended to the flowers after his wifes passing, so it is fitting that, as part of Laurels process of connecting with her past, she should take up the task one closing curtain time.\r\nThe activity of gardening helps her to feel comfortable and close to her parents, as she participates in the rhythm of the household as she remembers it. On other level, Laurel is tending her own â€Å"inner garden” in the sense that she is connecting with her own identity. Her mother love flowers so much(prenominal) that she named her daughter after one, and now that the mother is dead, the daughter is pity for the mothers flowers (Welty 27). In the house, Laurel finds herself so deeply in particle with her past that she can actually hear the spokespers ons of the mass she has loved and befuddled.\r\nShe hears her mothers office when she is in the garden, â€Å"Laurel went on pulling great deals. Her mothers voice came back with each weed she reached for, and its name with it. ‘Ironweed. ‘ ‘Just chickweed. ‘ ‘ present comes that miserable old vine! ‘” (Welty 107). Later, in a moment of memory the annoyance she felt when she lost her husband in gentleman War II, Laurel hears his voice grieving for their lost proximo together. Welty writes, ” ‘I wanted it! ‘ Phil cried. His voice rose with the wind in the night and went around the house and around the house. It became a roar. ‘I wanted it! ‘” (155).\r\nThere is no other place in addition her own home that Laurel can experience such individualised revelations and be accustomed the opportunity to confront her pain from the past and make recreation with it. The bond that she has with her home is so deep that she can pass over many obstacles and emotional problems in time. Only at home is she truly able to beam her heart and hear what she postulate to hear to heal herself. However, to lastly make peacefulness with her past and her present, she must become â€Å"one” with the significance of the house so she can take it with her wheresoever she goes. Incredibly, Laurel is able to do so.\r\nFay is originally from Madrid, Texas, which is a small, low-income town. Although Welty never takes the reader to Madrid, the remarks and personalities of the Chisom family offer some idea as to what large-hearted of place it is. It seems to lack all the charm and warmth of Laurels hometown of Mount Salus, yet for Fay it is nonetheless her home. In Mount Salus, Fay clearly feels out of her element and becomes extremely impolite and insecure. The reader can scarcely imagine whether or non she acts the same way when she is in the comfort of her own hometown, or if she acts the s ame way.\r\nNevertheless, in Fays bare-assed community of Mount Salus, she is disrespectful, self-absorbed, and yob (Welty 64, 85). Fay does not appreciate the home and the possessions of her late husband than she does his friends and family. In fact, she never makes an effort to interpret Laurels grief or her take aim to be in the house for a few days. Fays pressure sensation on returning with her family for a visit after the funeral could possibly reveal that Madrid is the precisely place in which Fay feels secure.\r\nFay is intent to go back with them, insist that she needs to be among lot who â€Å"speak her language. ” In other words, Fay, much like Laurel, needs to go where she feels understood either by others or by herself. In Mount Salus, Fay feels displaced, and her peril takes on many grotesque forms, such as her tilt to disrespect Beckys memory and to pass over her own family back in Madrid (Welty 152). Laurel imagines, â€Å" really likely, making a tantrum was, for Fay, like home. Fay had brought scenes to the hospital-and here, to the house” (Welty 131).\r\nLaurel understands that Fays horrible behavior is an sheer sign of her need to feel at home. Fay tries too unsaid to appear as though she believes that Judge McKelvas home is truly her own, but she never convinces anyone, including herself. At the time Eudora Welty wrote this story, she was grieving the dismission of her mother. In fact, the reader can see that the book is consecrated to C. A. W. (Chestina Andrews Welty), which reveals that this work is closely machine-accessible to the authors own personal handout (Marrs 228).\r\nThe autobiographical elements in the novel are numerous, and are oddly prominent in the parallels amid Beckys background and that of Weltys mother (Marrs 229). another(prenominal) elements pay respect to Weltys elated puerility and the loving coupling her parents enjoyed. Through Laurel, Welty honors her mother and also works t hrough some of the pain and the issues surrounding the expiry of a loving parent. Laurels personal go to make peace with her past in effectuate to make sense of her futurity certainly mirrors the authors own struggles.\r\nWelty differs from Laurel in the sense that Laurel lives far from her hometown, while Welty lived in Mississippi, where she was born, until her death (Marrs 232). For Laurel, however, the climax of her journey comes from the house. In the absence of a house that holds all of her childishness memories, Welty wrote this book. Welty works through some of her grief in her writing, which is as meaningful to her as the house is to Laurel. Welty comments on Laurels love of her past, â€Å"Firelight and warmth-that was what her memory gave her” (Westling 159).\r\nLaurel, Fay, and Welty are all work toward such comfort in a difficult time during the course of The Optimists Daughter. In very difficult times, confronted with emotion and uncertainty, people often long to return to the comfort and security of their childhood homes. Fay and Laurel find the havens they need by going back to their homes. Laurel is ultimately able to take a slicing of that firelight and warmth with her back to Chicago, because she has in the long run succeeded in making her heart and her home one.\r\n'