A Visit of Charity by Eudora Welty

The action of “A Visit of Charity” is deceptively simple. Marian, a young Campfire Girl, reluctantly visits an “Old Ladies’ Home” to gain points for her charity work. While there, she meets two old women, one who chatters on in an obsequious way and another, old Addie, who, confined to bed, resents the little girl’s visit as well as her own babbling roommate. When Marian leaves the home, she retrieves an apple that she hid before entering and takes a big bite out of it. Thus the story ends in a seemingly inconclusive way, leaving the reader to wonder if it is really a story at all. When one looks beneath the slight surface action of the story, however, one sees that “A Visit of Charity” has a complex structure based on a series of metaphoric devices, all of which serve to evoke the dreamlike grotesque atmosphere within the nursing home.

As Marian enters the home, the bulging linoleum on the floor makes her feel as if she is walking on the waves, and the smell in the building is like the interior of a clock. When the mannish nurse tells Marian that there are “two” in each room, Marian asks, “Two what?” The garrulous old woman is described as a birdlike creature who plucks Marian’s hat off with a hand like a claw, while old Addie has a “bunchy white forehead and red eyes like a sheep”; she even “bleats” when...