A Piece of News by Eudora Welty

First published: 1937

Type of plot: Psychological

Time of work: The 1930's

Locale: Southern United States

Principal Characters:

• Ruby Fisher, a barely literate country woman
• Clyde Fisher, her husband, a still operator

The Story

Ruby, a southern woman, has come in from the rain and is drying herself off and talking to herself. The scene is a primitive and remote cabin, perhaps in the author's native Mississippi. That she talks to herself so easily indicates that she is used to being alone. She cries out in astonishment that the sample of coffee on the table is wrapped in newspaper, and the narrator relates that "She must have been lonesome and slow all her life, the way things would take her by surprise."

Ruby suffers from cabin fever, a depression resulting from a nearly total isolation from the world, a condition often afflicting the rural poor in a time when modern transportation and communication did not extend to them. Ruby seldom sees anyone other than her husband, and she has no radio or telephone to fill the void. With little stimulation from the outside, the newspaper becomes a delightful diversion. She spreads it out before the fire and is astonished by so many words, and at best she can only trace out a few of them. Suddenly her own name leaps out from the page: Ruby Fisher! With difficulty she reads the short and utterly ambiguous announcement: "Mrs. Ruby Fisher had the misfortune to be shot in the leg by her husband this week."

Ruby does not realize that this is merely a coincidence of names. In her ignorance and superstition, she is trapped in a primitive confusion between a symbol and what that symbol represents, just as primitive people sometimes believe that the spirit of a person is contained in the name. Her name on the page has a powerful magic far greater than her own feeble authority. Her first reaction is fear and anger. How could her husband Clyde do such a thing to her? She calls to him, but Clyde is at the whiskey still in the woods, waiting out the thunderstorm.

Slowly she starts to understand what has happened. In talking to herself, she concludes that Clyde, however he may have mistreated her, has never shot her in the leg. She reflects on the times she has gone out to the road to stop cars and to lure the drivers to the cotton gin shed. Even when Clyde had found out about it, he did no more than slap her.

Ruby's mind runs imaginatively to wild melodrama. What if Clyde did shoot her, not just in the leg, but in the heart? She projects her own death scene, in which she lies beautiful, desirable, and dead. At her death, Clyde will feel a terrible repentance. He will have to buy her a dress to bury her in, and he will appreciate her as he looks on her grave.

As Ruby ruminates, Clyde suddenly appears in the room, dripping from the heavy rain. Crude and insensitive, he gruffly asks what is for supper and pokes her with the butt of his gun. Ruby goes about preparing his meal, but this time she has the secret of the newspaper within her as she moves about the room. She is aware of his watching her and feels seductive, making many unnecessary movements back and forth. Clyde evidently catches something of her mood, because he promptly accuses her of going hitchhiking again. She nervously spills coffee on his hand, and he threatens to beat her.

After Clyde finishes eating, Ruby expectantly shows him the newspaper. At first, he is flushed with anger and denial; it is a lie that he ever did such a thing. The truth of the circumstances comes to him more quickly than it did to his wife. They look at each other, and "some possibility stood timidly like a stranger between them and made them hang their heads." He throws the newspaper into the fire and points out to her that it was a Tennessee newspaper and referred to another Ruby Fisher. He spanks her good-humoredly across the backside. "My name is Ruby Fisher!" she protests. A spark of recognition passes between them. As she looks out the window, the storm rolls away like a wagon crossing a bridge.

Bibliography

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