The Housewife's Tale: Maternal Poetics in Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding

AbstractIn Delta Wedding, Welty immerses the reader in the world of the traditional home-centered woman. The novel explores the transformational, even sacred, nature of housework and domestic ritual through the experiences of five female characters at different stages of development, from 9-year-old Laura to Ellen, the "mother of them all." Structurally, the novel is organized by the intertwined and repeated circular journeys of the women, journeys that echo primal stories of female development. The repetition and sense of stasis that are integral to these elements as archetypal female experiences have irritated some critics. But the novel provides a framework for the maternal ethic of "holding" and offers a feminist poetics, essential for fully appreciating other texts that celebrate traditional female experiences. (Literary criticism; gender studies)