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"Tempting providence": The absurd humor of Eudora Welty's "Losing Battles"

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Date Issued:
1991
Summary:
The function of humor in Eudora Welty's work is to allow the reader access to her experiential world through language in order to reveal the multivalent life process, the insulating network of ritualistic endurance, and the dignified grace of ill-fated defiance. Exaggerated stereotypes and mythical allusions provide a way of entry into the fictional world of Losing Battles. Using vernacular dialogue and absurd actions as virtually her sole method of character development, Welty represents the elemental vitality of her characters whose will to persevere is reflected in their endless autobiographical storytelling. By recreating the family with talk, Welty's characters are able to shrug off the impinging reality that threatens their Sisyphian effort to survive. Her use of a self-conscious Southern idiom invites a phenomenological reading revealing the ultimately life-affirming pattern that informs the novel and gives shape to her fundamental comic spirit.
Title: "Tempting providence": The absurd humor of Eudora Welty's "Losing Battles".
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Name(s): Policy, Carole Davis.
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Pearce, Howard D., Thesis advisor
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Issuance: monographic
Date Issued: 1991
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 124 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: The function of humor in Eudora Welty's work is to allow the reader access to her experiential world through language in order to reveal the multivalent life process, the insulating network of ritualistic endurance, and the dignified grace of ill-fated defiance. Exaggerated stereotypes and mythical allusions provide a way of entry into the fictional world of Losing Battles. Using vernacular dialogue and absurd actions as virtually her sole method of character development, Welty represents the elemental vitality of her characters whose will to persevere is reflected in their endless autobiographical storytelling. By recreating the family with talk, Welty's characters are able to shrug off the impinging reality that threatens their Sisyphian effort to survive. Her use of a self-conscious Southern idiom invites a phenomenological reading revealing the ultimately life-affirming pattern that informs the novel and gives shape to her fundamental comic spirit.
Identifier: 14730 (digitool), FADT14730 (IID), fau:11521 (fedora)
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1991.
Subject(s): Welty, Eudora,--1909---Losing battles
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/14730
Sublocation: Digital Library
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.