Eudora Welty’s Atmosphere of Place: Ecologies of Air

ABSTRACT Creating stories from her own abundance of images and songs, Eudora Welty brings magic and mystery to the places and characters she describes in her short stories. Writing an air that suffuses the environment and the stories, she illustrates how the air, its fragrances, heat, and humidity are part of the ecology of the South and a key element of Welty’s southern stories. In them, air connects and touches the landscape, characters, plot, and themes. Complex interrelations are held together, she has shown, by the air, which represents both the real, physical world and the imagined domains of myth, dream, memory, and mystery. Smell, feeling, movement, weather, and seasonal changes stir and evoke moments of identity and belonging in the stories. In their winds, they carry the weight of moral conviction when they provoke action, affect characters, and turn the direction of the stories.