Weltys wandering Clytie had finally found refuge.ĭemonstrative of the storys significance to Welty and Russells working relationship, on the one hand, the brief history recapped above serves also to introduce that obscurity addressed by Russell,1 which is the greater subject of this study. There shortly before the magazine folded in 1942 (66). The church was moved to Grand Gulf and restored in 1983. Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, originally in Rodney, Mississippi, where Welty visited at the time of sending a draft of Clytie to her friend John Robinson. Russell sent her down to The Southern Review, and she was published Kreyling, retaining his orphan metaphor, describes the rest of the storys journey: Poor Clytie was out on the street again. When, at one point, Harpersīazaar actually agreed to buy Clytie, they soon switched it out for The Key instead. While Russell preferred to find publication for all that would compose A Curtain of Green and Other Stories, he met significant resistance with three stories in particularstories Michael Kreyling calls the orphans of the bunchClytie, The Key, and A Visit of Charity. Clytie, the story of a womans incessant search for a face, took on the life of a similar questa seemingly endless search for a place, or a journal willing to publish it. Russell immediately qualifies the critique, instructing, If the comment seems unjustified you dismiss it and write the agent a letter calling him an unliterate ass (Kreyling 2425), but the evaluation soon proved prophetic. But I think that that dream or imagination is hardly made clear enough to the reader to Clytie commit suicide. The face of love that you refer to is obviously some dream or imagination that has haunted Clytie. There seems to me to be some obscurity about it that makes it difficult to understand. I like it but I dont think it is as good as others of yours that I have seen. Three days later, Russell wrote back, pleased with the working relationship commenced but less impressed with Clytie itself, admitting, As a sign of the agreement, I enclose the story just written (qtd.
A response to Russells initiatory request that she hire him as such, the letter consents, Yesbe my agent, explaining, Just as letter was given to me, I finished a story, and holding one in each hand, it seemed inevitable. Emphasizing the influence on Welty's literary craft of her work as a photographer for the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression, Johnston presents a compelling appraisal of the writer's unique contributions to the tradition of the short story.Inside: Weltys Foreword for The Capers Papers, 1982 (15)įinding (M)others Face: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Eudora Weltys Clytieĭon James McLaughlin, Villanova UniversityĪn early draft of Clytie accompanied the first letter Eudora Welty ever sent Diarmuid Russell, the Dubliner turned New Yorker who would remain her agent from 1940 to 1973. In Eudora Welty: A Study of the Short Fiction, Carol Ann Johnston provides a first-rate guide to the writer's canon of short stories. Known for her marvelous ability to render the life and character of the deep South, Welty is particularly admired for her unfailing powers as an observer and her keen ear for the spoken word. 1909) is remarkable for its ability to convey the lyrical in everyday life, to offer haunting glimpses into the interior lives of individuals. Whether "Why I Live at the P.O.," "Clytie," or "Moon Lake," a short story by Eudora Welty (b.