A Visit of Charity by Eudora Welty
"A Visit of Charity" is a short story by Eudora Welty that explores the complexities of human interaction through the lens of a young girl’s visit to an old ladies' home. The protagonist, Marian, is a Campfire Girl who reluctantly visits the nursing home to earn points for her charity work. During her visit, she encounters two elderly women: one who chatters incessantly and another, Addie, who is resentful and confined to her bed. The story uses vivid metaphors to create a dreamlike atmosphere, with Marian experiencing disorientation and discomfort in the home, which symbolizes the broader themes of isolation and the challenges of connection across generational divides.
As the narrative unfolds, the tension peaks with a confrontation between Addie and her chatty roommate, highlighting Addie's painful acknowledgment of her lost youth. The story concludes ambiguously with Marian leaving the home, seemingly unaffected by her unsettling experience, as she bites into an apple she had hidden. This ending raises questions about the nature of charity and the emotional barriers that can exist between people from different stages of life. Overall, Welty's work invites readers to reflect on the deeper implications of compassion and the human experience within institutional settings.
On this Page
A Visit of Charity by Eudora Welty
First published: 1941
Type of plot: Didactic
Time of work: The 1930's
Locale: An American nursing home
Principal Characters:
Marian , a young Campfire Girl who visits a nursing homeAddie , an elderly female occupant of the nursing homeOld woman , who is Addie's roommate
The Story
The action of "A Visit of Charity" is deceptively simple. Marian, a young Campfire Girl, reluctantly visits an "Old Ladies' Home" to gain points for her charity work. While there, she meets two old women, one who chatters on in an obsequious way and another, old Addie, who, confined to bed, resents the little girl's visit as well as her own babbling roommate. When Marian leaves the home, she retrieves an apple that she hid before entering and takes a big bite out of it. Thus the story ends in a seemingly inconclusive way, leaving the reader to wonder if it is really a story at all. When one looks beneath the slight surface action of the story, however, one sees that "A Visit of Charity" has a complex structure based on a series of metaphoric devices, all of which serve to evoke the dreamlike grotesque atmosphere within the nursing home.
As Marian enters the home, the bulging linoleum on the floor makes her feel as if she is walking on the waves, and the smell in the building is like the interior of a clock. When the mannish nurse tells Marian that there are "two" in each room, Marian asks, "Two what?" The garrulous old woman is described as a birdlike creature who plucks Marian's hat off with a hand like a claw, while old Addie has a "bunchy white forehead and red eyes like a sheep"; she even "bleats" when she says, "Who—are—you?" Marian feels as if she has been caught in a robber's cave; she cannot even remember her own name. In her dreamy state, Marian cannot think clearly. When the old woman rocks faster and faster in her chair, Marian cannot understand how anyone can rock so fast.
The climax of the story occurs when it is discovered that it is old Addie's birthday. When the babbling roommate tells Marian that when she was a child she went to school, Addie lashes out in the single long speech in the story, telling her roommate that she was never young and that she never went to school: "You never were anything—only here. You never were born! You don't know anything. . . . Who are you? You're a stranger—a perfect stranger." When Marian goes over to Addie, she looks at her very closely from all sides, "as in dreams," and she wonders about her as if "there was nothing else in the world to wonder about. It was the first time such a thing had happened to Marian." When she asks the old woman how old she is, Addie says "I won't tell" and whimpers like a sheep, like a little lamb. In the last paragraph of the story, Marian has escaped her terrifying experience; when she jumps on the bus, she takes a big bite out of the apple that she hid, seemingly unaffected by her nightmarish experience with the old women.
Bibliography
Champion, Laurie. The Critical Response to Eudora Welty's Fiction. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994.
Gygax, Franziska. Serious Daring from Within: Female Narrative Strategies in Eudora Welty's Novels. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.
Gretlund, Jan Nordby. Eudora Welty's Aesthetics of Place. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1994.
Gretlund, Jan Nordby, and Karl-Heinz Westarp, eds. The Late Novels of Eudora Welty. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998.
Johnston, Carol Ann. Eudora Welty: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1997.
Kreyling, Michael. Understanding Eudora Welty. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999.
McHaney, Pearl Amelia, ed. Eudora Welty: Writers' Reflections upon First Reading Welty. Athens, Ga.: Hill Street Press, 1999.
Montgomery, Marion. Eudora Welty and Walker Percy: The Concept of Home in Their Lives and Literature. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2004.
Waldron, Ann. Eudora: A Writer's Life. New York: Doubleday, 1998.
Weston, Ruth D. Gothic Traditions and Narrative Techniques in the Fiction of Eudora Welty. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994.