Symbolism in A Visit of Charity

Often seen in literary pieces, color plays a vital role in being symbolic throughout the course of the work as well as other seemingly innocent items in their placement within the story. Color can be found to represent other inanimate ideas in the short story, A Visit of Charity. There are also times when physical objects have a deeper meaning behind them and the focus placed on them during the story is not merely by chance, but to draw the reader in and force them to considerate alternative reasons for it being mentioned. I found that the contrast between light and dark along with the inclusion of several other symbols seemed to play the biggest part of conveying second meanings and were subtle in separating the outside world from life inside the nursing home.

The story starts off with Marian getting off of the bus and walking towards the nursing home. Before entering, she stops for a minute at one of the prickly dark shrubs right outside of the home. We don’t know why she stopped until the end of the story where she retrieves a red apple that she had placed there on her way in and takes a big bite out of it. This importance and significance of the apple is not revealed and leaves it up to the reader to put together the pieces. I think that the apple symbolizes the outside world. It is bright in its red color and contrasts the dark shrubs in which she hid it. Why didn’t she take the apple in with her to the home? I’d have to say that this is because the home is so completely different from the outside world that a red apple wouldn’t fit in among the mundane color scheme that runs throughout the inside of the building.

The other peculiar thing about the dark and prickly shrubs is that they show a contrast of light and dark since they are placed against the white-washed bricks creating the home. I imagine the shrubs around the building as almost a barbed wire fire-dark, strong pointed prickers that turn people away and keep those inside, inside. Ii also was questioning why there are dark prickly shrubs which have more of a negative connotation than something softer like evergreens or flowers. The overall description the author gives allows us to assume that the inside of the home is cold and lacking beauty just as the outside and keeps the older people inside the home like a prison.

Marian sees the two women that she is visiting as animals. Addie is described as a bleating sheep and the other old lady has her hand’s being referred to as bird claws. These animal references show the ignorance and dehumanization that Marian is subconsciously doing The dehumanization begins right when Marian enters the home and is walking down the hall with the nurse. The nurse says “There are two in each room” to which Marian replies, “Two what?” Obviously we know that there are two residents in each room but for Marian, she quickly questions what are in them. Following her questioning, she describes a sound that she hears as a bleating sheep and then continues after the nurse to the tiny, crammed room that she would be visiting the ladies in. What the unconscious reduction of these women to mere creatures does for Marian is it displays her young and naïve way of thinking. 

Playing on the white that describes the lady’s bunchy forehead and the bird-like claws that reach out to grab her plant and her hair, the negative connotations that goes along with these words are vital in portraying the disgust that Marian feels along with her fear of being at the home with them. Their motions are eerie and seem to creep Marian out as they do the same to the reader.

On several occasions, the Addie is compared to a sheep. Sheep are typically seen as weak and feeble creatures that aren’t really able to think on their own and instead, follow the herd. They are also white which, to me, symbolizes illness (think pale skin) and reminds me of a sterile environment such as a hospital. Because of this, comparing the old and frail woman in the home to a white sheep symbolizes Marian’s view of the boring and humdrum lives that the people trapped within the walls of the home live.

White is also seen being worn by the nurse that leads Marian to the room.  The woman was dressed in a white uniform and, from the narrator’s perspective, looked as if she were cold. With this, I see the white of her uniform meaning that she belongs there. She blends in with the overall white theme of the home and is cold just like many other things mentioned in this story. The hands of Marian are described as getting colder and colder the longer she stays in this room. This is because the longer she is there, the more she turning into her surroundings. The day that she enters the home, she says it is mid-morning and a very cold, bright day. She then goes to say that the whitewashed bricks reflected the winter sunlight like a block of ice (cold). Finally, when she leaves the home it is still cold as the wind hits her when she steps outside. I think what she is saying with this is even once she leaves, the reminder of the coldness she experienced inside the home will follow her out into the real world.

This story, which seems to be a random telling of events with no real purpose, is filled with underlying meaning when you examine the text more thoroughly and look at what else the author is trying to say based on the words they use. I was able to uncover some of the symbols that Eudora Welty uses in her short story A Visit of Charity by examining the colors that were repeated throughout and other symbols such as the comparisons made towards animals and the connotation derived from those.