A visit of charity Essays -- essays research papers

A Visit of CharityIn the short grade of "A Visit of Charity" by Eudora Welty, a fourteen-year-old girl visits devil women in a home for the elderly to bring them a determine 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 nub of the word "charity." Websters New World College Dictionary defines "charity" as "the love of man for his fellow men an act of good testament or affection." But instead of love, good will, and affection, self-interest, insensitiveness, and dehumanization prevail in this story. Weltys description of the setting and her portrayal of Marian dramatize the theme that peoples selfishness and insensitivity can blind them to the humanity and needs of others. Many features of the setting, a winters daytime at a home for elderly women, suggest coldness, neglect, and dehumanization. Instead of evergreens or other vegetation that m ight lend softness or witness to the place, the city has landscaped it with "prickly dark shrubs." Behind the shrubs the whitewashed walls of the over-the-hill Ladies Home reflect "the winter sunlight like a frustrate 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 wom...