"A Sweet Devouring" by Eudora Welty

            While transported to Eudora Welty’s childhood in A Sweet Devouring, the reader is permitted a look into the thoughts of a little girl who loves nothing more than reading. With a B.A. in English from the University of Wisconsin (Newsmakers), it is quite clear from Welty’s major that she has an extreme passion for all things English, making her childhood anecdote filled with passion that much more believable. In A Sweet Devouring, Welty illustrates her love for reading that began at a young age; she includes several examples of different books and her emotions towards them. For example, she took the time to draw an analogy between an original series and its knock-off, stating that “[the originals] were not as good” (Welty 250). Welty tries to have the reader understand her love for books and the role they played in her childhood, and accomplishes this flawlessly by connecting with the audience, people who share this infatuation, through figurative language and a specific style. On the topic of series, she writes, “But they weren’t all that easy to buy, because the series stuck, and to buy some of it was like breaking into a loaf of French bread” (Welty 249). Ever passionate reader shares this haunting feeling of owning an unfinished series, and she the audience to relate by drawing the simile to French bread: no one can just have one slice. This burden is shared between Welty and the reader, helping them to comprehend and accept her view on books. Again her passion for reading is shown when her mother finally brings her to the library and she thinks, “I wasn’t coming to the end of reading, after all – I was saved” (Welty 247). The way she describes this, as if she could not possibly go on without books, shows her desperation to maintain the relationship between her and reading. Eudora Welty coerces the reader into seeing the beauty books hold by transporting them to an innocent time in her life filled with endless novels in A Sweet Devouring.

Bibliography

"Eudora Welty." Newsmakers. Detroit: Gale, 2002. N. pag. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 29 Aug. 2014. <http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE|K1618003551&v=2.1&u=wisstrojans&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w&asid=9c8f98dfdad12f81781fed8b59dee974>.

 

Eudora Welty In Euphoria

Eudora Welty, author of A Sweet Devouring, is shown in her personal heaven: anywhere with a book.

Picture by Mildred Nungester Wolfe