Passage Analysis Of “A Visit Of Charity” By Eudora Welty
Within this short story the author utilities the use of symbolism. Along with vivid imagery and direction to convey their cynical opinions upon a residential home for the elderly. Throughout the vivid imagery and diction together with remarkable details within the short passage, the author gives insights to the reader on how they may fell towards the home for the elderly.
This short story takes place in the mid-morning on a very cold day at a residential home for the elderly on the outskirts of a town. This elderly home is described to the audience as ”whitewashed brick and reflected the winter sunlight like a block of ice” The Word choice for ”block of ice ” implies the coldness within the home Along with that of the nurse wearing a white uniform is a symbolism that represents death coldness, illness and boredom in the retirement home. Also the nurses who looks cold and appears to have an overall distasteful attitude throughout the second paragraph. During the duration throughout this short passage, the author conveys that although it’s not physically cold it ’s emotional and mentally cold. This could imply that the home makes people fell unwelcome and unloving. Another description of the home is “prickly dark shrubs” Which could also imply the absences of affection, neglecting and warmth from a community towards forsaken elderly people within the residential home. The setting within this short passage is essential on the portrayal of the theme. Without the descriptions of the cold and dark settings, the neglect of the elderly would feel much less prominent throughout this passage.
The main protagonists of this story is a girl of 14 called Marian who has yellow hair and wearing a red coat along with a pointed cap who’s visiting an old ladies home. She appears to be a self-centered person and that her only concern is that she earns more points more that anything else because she is a campfire girl. Her visit to the elderly home is clearly insincere even though this act should be one that is generous and sincere. Marian acts in a way that is very selfish and cruel to the old ladies. At the start of the Dialogue, the first thing Marian says to the nurse at the desk is “I’m a campfire girl… I have to pay a visit to some old ladies” when the nurse asks Marian if she were “Acquainted with any of our residents here “she answers with “no but that is, any of them with doing” it is clear that she does not want to be there by making a statement on how she has to visit “SOME” old ladies. Marian comes off as not wanting to be at the elderly home and that she hits about how she cannot wait to leave as the theme within this short passage is selfishness. Marian the main character in this passage has dehumanized the two old ladies in this short story by unconsciously describing and associating the sound of the old lady’s to a sheep’s bleating and the other old woman hand to a bird claw. When entering the tiny room she is frightened by the thought of her imagination, where she’s being caught in a robbers cave these hallucinations are caused by her lack of preparations. In the meantime, the author’s representations describe Marian reactions also shows the lack of respect that teenagers and the community have for the older generation.
Throughout this short passage the you can see how the author portrays to the audience about how they feel about residential home and the theme throughout is selflessness and neglect.
