In the short story of ‘A Visit of Charity’ by Eudora Welty, a fourteen-year-old girl visits two women in a home for the elderly to bring them a plant and to earn points for Campfire Girls. Welty implies through this story that neither the society that supports the home nor the girl, Marian, knows the meaning of the word ‘charity.’ Webster^aEURTMs New World College Dictionary defines ‘charity’ as ‘the love of man for his fellow men: an act of good will or affection.’ But instead of love, good will, and affection, self-interest, insensitivity, and dehumanization prevail in this story. Welty’s description of the setting and her portrayal of Marian dramatize the theme that people’s selfishness and insensitivity can blind them to the humanity and needs of others. Many features of the setting, a winter’s day at a home for elderly women, suggest coldness, neglect, and dehumanization. Instead of evergreens or other vegetation that might lend softness or beauty to the place, the city has landscaped it with ‘prickly dark shrubs.’ Behind the shrubs the whitewashed walls of the Old Ladies’ Home reflect ‘the winter sunlight like a block of ice.’ Welty also implies that the cold appearance of the nurse is due to the coolness in the building as well as to the stark, impersonal, white uniform she is wearing. Perhaps the clearest evidence of dehumanization is the small, crowded rooms, each inhabited by two older women.
The Term Paper on Hypertext Games or Stories: Patchwork Girl
Information or messages may be communicated in so many ways depending on the conditions inherent within the various situations or environments wherein the process of communication shall take place. Determining the various ways or means by which information or messages, particularly facts and realities, are communicated is extremely significant not only because important information embedded within ...
The room that Marian visits is dark, with a drawn shade and too much furniture. The wet smell of everything and the wet appearance of the bare floor suggest that this cramped room is more like a stall in a barn, a place for animals, than that it might be a home fit for use by human beings. Throughout her so-called visit of charity, Marian perceived the old women she meets sometimes as things and sometimes as animals. During her brief stay at the Home, Marian thinks of the first old woman as a bird and the second as a sheep. In her eyes, the first woman moves in ‘short, gradual jerks’ like a bird, has ‘a hand quick as a bird claw,’ and grabs her with the grip of a talon. The other woman, bundled up in bed with a quilt, appears to Marian to resemble a sheep.
When Marian first sees her, she describes her mentally as having ‘a bunchy white forehead and red eyes like a sheep.’ When this second woman clears her throat or talks, she sounds to Marian like a sheep bleating or a lamb whimpering. Marian’s unconscious dehumanization of the women, her reduction of them to objects and creatures, reveals her own insensitivity. She refers to an old woman as an object to be used and discarded when she announces the purpose of her visit: ‘I’m a Campfire Girl … I have to pay a visit to some old lady.’ These words and her frequent thoughts about the points she will get for the visit reveal her real reason for coming: self-gain. An old woman — ‘any of them will do’ she says — is an impersonal thing with no identity or personality. Clearly, her concern is focused on her progress in Campfire Girls. Finally, Welty illustrates the theme of self-interest and insensitivity through Marian’s actions, particularly at the end of the story. Even before her visit she was thinking about herself when she hid her apple under a bush before entering the building.
Marian came to give a thing, a potted plant, not herself. She even gave less time than another Campfire Girl who read the Bible to the old women. Even after her rude departure, she is untouched by the raw needs and emotional void revealed to her. As she yells for the bus to wait, leaps on, and chomps on her apple, she shows her untouched feelings and undisturbed ignorance. She had her points; nothing else matters. Welty further suggests in this story that fake charity can destroy the very humanity it pretends to acknowledge and uphold.
The Essay on A Character Analysis Of Marian In A Visit Of Charity
A Character Analysis of Marian in A Visit of Charity In the short story, A Visit of Charity, Eudora Welty illustrates the story of a fourteen-year-old girl named Marian, who is a Campfire Girl that is paying a visit to the Old Ladies Home in order to earn points as a Campfire Girl. Marian thought that this would be an easy task that would take just a little of her time and an insignificant amount ...
People like Marian acting either out of duty or for personal advantages have created the Home and the conditions that have made the inhabitants irritable, and unlovable. Marian left the women more lonely and distraught than she found them. This kind of charity is uncharitable indeed..
