Swimming Free of the Matriarchy: Sexual Baptism and Feminine Individuality in Eudora Welty's The Golden Apples

Abstract

Critics have often commented upon feminist and sexual implications of Eudora Welty's story-cycle Golden Apples. Patricia Yaeger calls Golden Apples beautifully crafted and gender-preoccupied novel whose emphasis on sexuality ... has been fully comprehended (956). Julia Demmin and Daniel Curley note book's emphasis on not only ancient myths of male godhead but also even more ancient myths of female mysteries (242), and Daniele Pitavy-Souques points out strong sexual connotation (263) of mythical stories that lend narrative a sort of structure. One aspect of Golden Apple's powerful sexual imagery that has long gone unexamined Welty's unique and subversive connection of sexuality imagery. Scholars have frequently ignored (or at least fully explored) thematic ramifications of ever-present images in Golden Apples. Big Black River, Mississippi River, even Pacific Ocean: images pervade and unite stories that compose this volume. Noel Polk has observed that in Welty's work, is matrix, our nourishment, and our source of life; but it also mysterious and fraught (96). In Golden Apples, Welty intensifies peril as well as nourishment, forming a subtle but significant link between images and themes of feminine and sexual power, a link that manifests itself most obviously and powerfully in Moon and The Wanderers. lake at heart of Moon Lake, central to Golden Apples both physically and thematically, stands as most important of these bodies of water; it practically bursts almost too-obvious phallic imagery, a curious and significant reversal of convention that always regards as a feminine symbol. From outset, Welty identifies girls' daily immersion as utterly male through whimsical song Dip, which counselors and campers almost worshipfully sing as prepare to enter lake (113-114). girls fear water snakes [that] were swimming here and there, and Jinny Love wants to sacrifice orphans to get snakes stirred so that will chased away by time me go in. Mrs. Gruenwald warns of and cypress roots (115) in water, where the sharp hard knobs came up where least expected (116). Before Nina, Jinny, and Easter have their nautical misadventure, Jinny Love protests that there's stobs in lake. We'd be upset (130). Further, young girls hardly seem adept in water. Although Welty notes that some of girls rather eagerly ripped their dresses off their heads (114), she also states that none of orphans could or would swim, ever; instead, they just stood waist-deep and waited for d!p to be over (115). Morgana girls seem scarcely more at ease; although Nina claims that she can swim, Jinny Love points out her inexperience (130). This plethora of phallic imagery and girls' floundering fear in paradoxically suggest that lake serves merely as a site for refreshment but also as a symbol of dangerous male sexuality. Since Lake abounds such powerfully sexual symbolism, question of who controls lake becomes crucial to an understanding only of this story but, in fact, of whole novel. overprotective matriarchal regime of at Lake reflects ordering principle of Morgana itself. token male presence, in forms of Booney Holifield and young Loch Morrison, possesses little or no real authority. Although Mr. Holifield serves as the man to be sure and have around camp (121), he has a well-known record of lazy obliviousness: Julia Demmin and Daniel Curley note that in June Recital he slept through love and fire and madness (245). In story, Nina Carmichael observes, He hasn't got a gun to jump out with (121), a none-too-subtle jab at Booney's lack of sexual and physical power. …