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Floyd C. Watkins (essay date Spring 1988)

SOURCE: "Death and the Mountains in The Optimist's Daughter," in Essays in Literature, Vol. 15, No. 1, Spring, 1988, pp. 77-85.

[In the following essay, Watkins discusses the importance of mountains in Welty's life and in her novel The Optimist's Daughter.]

The pervasive relationship between character and place in fiction is especially important and subtle in the fiction of Eudora Welty. Place derives not only from natural geographical characteristics but also from human history and the events that have happened there. In one of several lectures and essays on the subject, Weky comments on the endurance of life in place, which transcends time, locality, and changes in the terrain:

Whatever is significant and whatever is tragic in its story live as long as the place does, though they are unseen, and the new life will be built upon these things—regardless of commerce and...

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1. Introduction
2. Criticism
   1. Maureen Howard (review date 2 November 1980)
   2. Eudora Welty with Jo Brans (interview date Summer 1981)
   3. Paul Bailey (review date 4 June 1982)
   4. Nancy B. Sederberg (review date Fall 1983)
   5. Eudora Welty with Tom Royals and John Little (interview date 1984)
   6. Eric Homberger (review date 20 July 1984)
   7. Eudora Welty with Barbara Lazear Ascher (interview date Autumn 1984)
   8. Lee Smith (review date Spring 1985)
   9. Daniel Aaron (review date 2 May 1985)
   10. Harriet Pollack (essay date Fall 1986)
   11. Suzanne Marrs (essay date October 1986)
   12. Barbara Harrell Carson (essay date Spring 1988)
   13. Floyd C. Watkins (essay date Spring 1988)
   14. James Walter (essay date Fall 1988)
   15. Eudora Welty with Sally Wolff (interview date January 1990)
   16. Jan Nordby Gretlund (essay date Fall 1992)
   17. Sally Wolff (essay date Fall 1992)
   18. Eben E. Bass (essay date Spring 1993)
   19. Gary M. Ciuba (essay date Fall 1993)
   20. Alexandr Vaschenko (essay date Fall 1993)
   21. Carol Shields (review date 12 August 1994)
3. Further Reading
4. Copyright

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