Date of Award
Spring 2011
Degree Type
Masters Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
Committee Chair
Michael Mays
Committee Chair Department
English
Committee Member 2
Kenneth Watson
Committee Member 2 Department
English
Committee Member 3
Kate Cochran
Committee Member 3 Department
English
Abstract
The Optimist's Daughter and The Death of the Heart reveal that, for Eudora Welty and Elizabeth Bowen, place is· more than mere landscape. Place is both the scene upon which their novels unfold and the means by which they convey their abstract understandings of the world. Place provides the physical settings of their stories, but it also reveals something about their psyche or symbolic language. The settings used by Welty in The Optimist's Daughter reinforce traditional notions of place in Southern life and society whereas the settings employed by Bowen in The Death of the Heart exhibit a partiality for mobility over rootedness. In The Optimist's Daughter, Welty's protagonist must confront a possible loss of heart and home, and in The Death of the Heart, Bowen's protagonist is faced with an actual loss of freedom and mobility. Thus, through a study of these two novels, Welty's focus on place as it relates to roots and tradition, and Bowen's fascination with place as it relates to continual movement and progress, become apparent.
Copyright
2011, Emily Frances Cooley
Recommended Citation
Cooley, Emily Frances, "I Don't Know Why You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello: Concepts of Place in Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter and Elizabeth Bowen's The Death of the Heart" (2011). Master's Theses. 612.
https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/612