GABRIELLE STANTON
Eudora Welty’s fiction includes some of the richest food imagery in Southern literature, as well as some of the richest female characters. Not coincidently, the two are often served together. By constantly placing her female characters in the kitchen and associating them with cooking or baking, Welty’s fiction suggests that women “belong” in the kitchen. But this is not misogyny, as anyone who really takes the time to think about Welty’s fiction will realize: rather, Welty seems to be suggesting that women—like food—are not only nurturing and central aspects of life, but often the pillars of the family, that which sustains a family unit and community. A woman’s place in the kitchen, along with her “kitchen rights” so to speak, represents the feminine powers of healing, nourishment, and strength.
Welty’s Delta Wedding tells the story of the Fairchild family, an old and wealthy Delta family residing on a feudal cotton plantation called Shellmound in 1923. The story outlines their preparations for their seventeen-year-old daughter Dabney’s wedding to Troy, the plantation’s thirty-four year old overseer. Like Faulkner’s Compsons, the Fairchilds are a family with strong roots but weak branches; the stress during the week leading up to the wedding reveals controversy and weakness, and most of all a lack of communication skills. Most of the gossip and drama revolves around the passive ways the family members express their displeasure at Dabney for marrying Troy, someone seen as unsuitable for such a prestigious family.
However, the Fairchild women aren’t just portrayed by Welty as petty gossipers. They’re also bright, likeable women with strong senses of tradition. One of my favorites of the female characters is Ellen, Dabney’s mother. Not surprisingly, Ellen spends a lot of time in the kitchen, and it’s really as if this is the source of her strength. The kitchen is her haven, her solace, and the place that lends itself to soul searching and reflection. In a beautiful beginning scene, Welty describes Ellen baking a cake before she goes to bed; methodically incorporating all of the ingredients leads her into a nostalgic trance. As Ellen goes from mixing in the nutmeg and the lemon rind to incorporating the milk, eggs, and flour, her thoughts go from peaceful ones to more disenchanted ones as the process awakens her consciousness and allows her to address some troubling questions.
There are many scenes like this which show that the kitchen is where Ellen finds herself able to face thoughts that she might not face otherwise, or express to anyone else. For Ellen, at least, the kitchen is her appropriate place.
By associating females with kitchens and food, Welty is not subordinating her female characters. Rather, she’s saying something quite telling about females and the degree of control they really have. Interestingly, even a male critic in 1946 noted that Welty describes the Fairchild family as a “perpetual matriarchy,” as it is the women who hold everything together. So as even this male reader could see, Welty’s response to the usually-seen-as-offensive maxim “women belong in the kitchen” might be something like “Of course they do! Why would we leave such an important role to the men?”
But while kitchens—as female dominated spaces—serve as places of strength and stability for older writers like Eudora Welty, this is not always the case for later female writers: instead, kitchens often become places of rebellion against traditional female roles. To look at this theme in action, let’s turn to one of my all-time favorite provocateurs, Miss Flannery O’Connor.
- By Cmacauley (Robie with Flannery 1947.jpg) , via Wikimedia Commons
No one can tell a parable quite like O’Connor. With wit, humor, and undeniable wisdom she subverts even the most politically correct of narratives and maxims. This is often accomplished through her narrators: progressive thinking and usually protestant, these quixotic characters sometimes “know” too much for their own good, and find this out the hard way. There are usually at least two characters, with both of them espousing opposite views on politics, religion, or simply the way things are. But rather then hinting at the very beginning as to which character is “right” in his or her worldview and which is “wrong,” O’Connor exposes the flaws of both.
In other words, while many authors strive to answer important questions in their works, O’Connor prefers to cause even more tension with the way she further complicates questions such as race, class, and gender.
Many of O’Connor’s stories feature female protagonists, and they are often controlling, old-fashioned women who find themselves in charge of entire farms—the very source of food. “Good Country People” stars one of these prototypes, Mrs. Hopewell, a devout Christian who cooks and cleans and thinks the only reason a girl should go to college is to find a husband. Mrs. Hopewell, who only manages to see the best in everything and everyone, serves as a foil for her daughter Joy, a miserable intellectual not unlike many of the other intellectuals O’Connor pokes fun at in her other stories. Joy, having lost one of her legs at an earlier age, is not the most attractive of characters, and insecurity leads her to angrily reject traditional notions of femininity, which she sees as oppressive. She changes her name to “Hulga” and gets her PhD in philosophy, becoming a fervent atheist and adopting a nihilistic outlook on life. And of course, she refuses to take up her “proper place” in the kitchen. While Joy/Hulga depends entirely on her mother for nourishment, she uses the kitchen table instead as a venue to spout out her nihilistic views.
Further, on the climactic instance in which she is actually invited on a picnic with a certain gentleman, she fails to bring a picnic basket, forgetting that food is usually taken on a picnic. I won’t give away the ending, but let’s just say that Hulga finds out the hard way that she’s not as much of a know-it-all as she thinks, getting herself into a situation her PhD can’t get her out of—but a bit of common sense might have been useful.
Is O’Connor saying that Hulga is foolish to reject her traditional feminine role? It’s not that simple, because O’Connor also reveals the shortcomings of Mrs. Hopewell. Both Hulga and her mother are blind to the real world: while Hulga is incapable of seeing good, her mother is incapable of seeing evil—and O’Connor makes it clear that both exist in the real world and must be acknowledged.
Because she’s such a literary master, Miss O’Connor doesn’t directly reveal whether she thinks a woman’s proper role is in front of a stove. Instead, she says something important about the nature of a “role” itself, and that is for the thoughtful reader to find.
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