Realism In Eudora Welty's A Visit Of Charity

What is realism? According to Peter Brooks, realism can take up various forms: realism as the visual, or realism as the ordinary aspects of life, or realism as the ugliest aspects of life, as long the message is conveyed. Which message? That of reality. What is reality then? “We have a thirst for reality, which is curious, since we have too much reality, more than we can bear.” (Brooks, 1). Do we in fact crave reality that much? But then as he explains, what we crave is not actually reality. He goes on by taking the example of reality tv, which is quite astounding because of the irony behind it. Does reality tv really portray reality? Reality tv is a facade,yet we call it ‘reality’ tv. We see here that what we think is reality is not reality …show more content…
It represents the first definition of realism: to show things as they are, and to address a social issue but also beauty in the ugly. In this story, we can see that the little young girl, Marian going to the Old Ladies’ Home as a campfire girl to simply gain points for her charity work. What is quite odd is that at the very beginning, instead of describing the home that is supposed to be warm and welcoming, it was worded as “whitewashed brick and reflected the winter sunlight as a block of ice beautified by a prickly dark shrub.” The absence of affection and warmth is predominant here. Marian is self-centered and her sole aim of visiting the home is to gain points and her visit is purely insincere. This is clearly shown as she replies: “No-but-that is, any of them will do.” (Welty, 113) Her selfishness pops up at every instance in the story. Instead of bringing a thoughtful gift, like fruits, she chooses to bring a potted plant, which is not very practical. Also, later in the story, Marian has dehumanized the two old women, though not on purpose. She compares the sound of the old lady to the sound of a bleating sheep and the hand of the other old lady to that of a bird claw. The way the protagonist describes and reacts to the situations portrays reality: The disrespect of youngsters towards the elder generation. Isolated in their tiny rooms, the two old ladies are miserable and it seems that they barely interact with the outside world. Marian is really disturbed by the old women arguing and she starts to lose herself: she cannot speak and think anymore. She suddenly experiences an epiphany and starts to actually think about the old ladies “How old are you?” (Welty, 117) Marian actually then really cares about the old women. She comes to realize the fragility and horror of aging and it does trouble her but soon she becomes remote