People Who Had an Influence on Eudora Welty’s Career

The people who were most important in Eudora Welty’s childhood significantly affected her future writing, from the intimidating qualities of Mrs. Calloway, to the forward thinking practices of her mother. All of this led to the Eudora Welty’s insatiability for books, and the development of her career as a short story author.

In the story, One Writer’s Beginnings, Eudora Welty uses figurative language to describe the antagonist of the story, a librarian named Mrs. Calloway, as a magical demonic like creature that has lots of authority in the library. Mrs. Calloway’s idea of running her library in an old fashioned manner has oppressed Eudora’s love of reading. Welty wrote that Mrs. Calloway “ran the Library all by herself.” Welty is explaining to us that Mrs. Calloway has authority over the library and does imply strict rules that the students do need to follow. In this passage, Mrs. Calloway is constantly being shown as a very commanding person, such as when Welty writes that Mrs. Calloway is constantly speaking “in her normally commanding voice.” The reader starts to get the feeling that she is always an authoritative person if her voice is naturally commanding and.

Her commanding / authoritative attitude is keeping Eudora from checking out the books that she wants to read because Mrs. Calloway is constantly using her power as the librarian to shun away children from her library. This does impact Welty because her insatiability and love for reading is not being ‘fed’ because of the strict rules that Mrs. Calloway makes these children endure. The strictness of Mrs. Calloway is explained in the second paragraph. Mrs. Calloway was strict mostly towards girls. Welty wrote that Mrs. Calloway would send you “straight back home” if you wore the wrong skirt. Mrs. Calloway is just constantly throwing hurdles at Welty to keep her away from reading.

This is explained when Eudora writes that no one can “take back a baby on the same day that you had taken it out.” This proves to be one of the biggest challenges for Welty because she loves to read so many books at a time, so when she finishes reading a book, she can't check it back in because of Mrs. Calloway’s unnecessarily trivial rule. Mrs. Calloway is overly paranoid about keeping her library orderly and the way that she likes, and this is affecting Eudora’s insatiability to read.

Eudora Welty’s mother also influences Eudora and her love of reading during the short story. Her mother feeds her insatiability to read which will soon craft her as a writer, which is shown by her mother's own insatiability for reading as well. Eudora’s mother taught her that reading should be a part of her everyday life, and that she may have to multitask if it means her being able to read. This is shown when her mother is reading “The Origin of Species” while is is “lying on a shelf in the pantry under a nice dusting of flour.” This shows that her mother is multitasking so that she can be able to read while she is baking her bread. Eudora’s mother really wants her daughter to read when ever she can. Her mother even goes all the way to get her her “own library card.” Eudora’s mother is not afraid of Mrs. Calloway, and this creates what is almost an opening for Eudora to be able to read the books that she wants to without all of the obstacles thrown at her by Mrs. Calloway, who is her biggest nemesis when it comes to her being able to read.