[In the following review, Nordby Gretlund discusses the scene in Welty's Losing Battles in which Granny invites Vaughn to get in bed with her, and asserts that the scene is a case of mistaken identity, not a revelation of a dark side of the family.]

It is my impression that there is an intense search among critics for censure by Welty of the farmers in her novel Losing Battles. I think that the subconscious rejection of her blatant celebration of the Beecham-Renfros stems from an unsatisfied urge among Welty's admirers to locate passages in her fiction that deal with the dark, or even evil, side of humanity. Several critics are obviously of the conviction that only the presence of unexplained evil will give her fiction its full depth, so they cast about for the negative aspects of Welty's characters. And whereas the dark side of man is definitely present in her fiction, critics are not always locating it in the right places. As a typical case in point I can refer to the many surprising interpretations of the following scene.

It is late in the evening after the reunion. Granny Vaughn has retired to her bed, and Vaughn, Jack's brother, who is twelve, is making his way through the passage of the house to the loft, to bed down after a long day's hard work:

Then all of a sudden there came through the passage a current of air. A door swung open in Vaughn's face and there was Granny, tiny in her bed in full lamplight. For a moment the black bear-skin on the floor by the bed shone red-haired, live enough to spring at him. After the moonlight and the outdoors, the room was as yellow and close as if he and Granny were embedded together in a bar of yellow soap. "Take off your hat," Granny's mouth said. "And climb in wi' me." He fled out of her dazzled sight. "She didn't know who I was," he told himself, running. And then, "She didn't care!"

The rest of the scene is simply a description of the confused boy's flight to the loft.

In an early essay, originally broadcast by Voice of America in 1973, Seymour Gross commented that the night scene is "the literal and symbolic dark time of the novel." He continues: "Granny, anguished by the end of the reunion, pleads with Vaughn, neither knowing nor caring who he is, to get into bed with her." Gross's idea about this scene has been perpetuated by Larry J. Reynolds in an equally influential essay of 1978. Reynolds wrote, "Vaughn Renfro's painful and nightmarish vision as he encounters Granny in bed further discloses a reality neither lighthearted, comic, nor charming…. Granny is ready to ask someone to share her bed, not knowing nor caring who it is, because she does know that that person represents relief from the loneliness she feels." As Reynolds goes on, it becomes obvious that he is relieved "that the truth about Granny Vaughn's family has been completely revealed." Most critics follow Gross and Reynolds in this reading. As Elizabeth Evans phrases it: "Vaughn is distressed when Granny awakens and, not knowing who he is, invites him to her bed [my italics]."

But is this really an important scene that completely reveals the dark side of this family? As Elin Harkema, who is an old woman, has pointed out to me, the truth is that Granny believes she knows the person she is inviting into her bed very well. To understand this we have to remember an earlier sentence in the novel, about Vaughn's riding Bet, the mule, through the night "dosed with moonlight," wondering what Jack's return will mean to him. Welty continues: "Grandpa Vaughn's hat came down low and made his ears stick out like funnels." In other words, Vaughn is wearing Grandpa Vaughn's hat, and a little later he carries well water in it. It is probably her late husband that Granny thinks she sees that night. Remember what she said: "Take off your hat…. And climb in wi' me."

Granny Vaughn is ninety years old. Her eyesight is failing, she is asleep after a tiring day, and she is awakened by a thud when her door swings open. Is it any wonder that when she looks up against the glare of the lamplight and against moonlight "the thickness of China" and sees the outline of her husband's hat in her doorway, she is "dazzled" enough to believe for a second that her husband is still with her? It is no wonder that the boy is puzzled by Granny's invitation, but is there any reason why we should be puzzled or shocked?