Date of Award

5-2001

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Departmental Honors

Department

English

Abstract

Although the study of place-writing may be a relatively new voice in the conversation of literary analysis, it is not without significance. Eudora Welty believes that place-writing is not new in and of itself: "From the dawn of man's imagination, place has enshrined the spirit; as soon as man stopped wandering and stood still and looked about him, he found a god in that place; and from then on, that was where the god abided and spoke from if he ever spoke" (123). Welty suggests that the process of connecting oneself to a particular place is innate in all humankind. Writing about place, as well, feels innate and natural. "I think the sense of place," Welty continues, "is as essential to good and honest writing as a logical mind ... . It is by knowing where you stand that you grow able to judge where you are .... [I]t bestows on us our original awareness; and our critical powers spring up from the study of it and the growth of experience inside it. ... Sense of place gives equilibrium" (128). Part of the awareness and the critical powers Welty describes comes in a writer's understanding that place shapes story. Certain histories and experiences could not have existed outside of that particular place. When Norman Maclean describes the tough social code of his childhood Montana, he realizes that his story bends to the influence of that place. His brother's life could never have been the same in any other place. For place writers, place plays as active a role in the story as do characters of flesh and blood.

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Faculty Mentor

Melody Graulich

Departmental Honors Advisor

Kristine Miller