The Optimist's Daughter and The Death of the Heart reveal that, for Eudora Welty and Elizabeth Bowen, place is· more than mere landscape. Place is both the scene upon which their novels unfold and the means by which they convey their abstract understandings of the world. Place provides the physical settings of their stories, but it also reveals something about their psyche or symbolic language. The settings used by Welty in The Optimist's Daughter reinforce traditional notions of place in Southern life and society whereas the settings employed by Bowen in The Death of the Heart exhibit a partiality for mobility over rootedness. In The Optimist's Daughter, Welty's protagonist must confront a possible loss of heart and home, and in The Death of the Heart, Bowen's protagonist is faced with an actual loss of freedom and mobility. Thus, through a study of these two novels, Welty's focus on place as it relates to roots and tradition, and Bowen's fascination with place as it relates to continual movement and progress, become apparent.
","abstract_html":"<p>The Optimist's Daughter and The Death of the Heart reveal that, for Eudora Welty and Elizabeth Bowen, place is· more than mere landscape. Place is both the scene upon which their novels unfold and the means by which they convey their abstract understandings of the world. Place provides the physical settings of their stories, but it also reveals something about their psyche or symbolic language. The settings used by Welty in The Optimist's Daughter reinforce traditional notions of place in Southern life and society whereas the settings employed by Bowen in The Death of the Heart exhibit a partiality for mobility over rootedness. In The Optimist's Daughter, Welty's protagonist must confront a possible loss of heart and home, and in The Death of the Heart, Bowen's protagonist is faced with an actual loss of freedom and mobility. Thus, through a study of these two novels, Welty's focus on place as it relates to roots and tradition, and Bowen's fascination with place as it relates to continual movement and progress, become apparent.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Cooley, Emily Frances"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Arts (MA)","degree_level":"Masters Thesis","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Michael Mays","Kenneth Watson","Kate Cochran"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-05-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2011-05-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:45:12Z","subjects":["Arts and Humanities","English Language and Literature"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/612","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Michael Mays","Kenneth Watson","Kate Cochran"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Cooley, Emily Frances"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2019-01-10T08:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["English"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Masters Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Arts (MA)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Arts and Humanities","English Language and Literature"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/612"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["The Optimist's Daughter and The Death of the Heart reveal that, for Eudora Welty and Elizabeth Bowen, place is· more than mere landscape. Place is both the scene upon which their novels unfold and the means by which they convey their abstract understandings of the world. Place provides the physical settings of their stories, but it also reveals something about their psyche or symbolic language. The settings used by Welty in The Optimist's Daughter reinforce traditional notions of place in Southern life and society whereas the settings employed by Bowen in The Death of the Heart exhibit a partiality for mobility over rootedness. In The Optimist's Daughter, Welty's protagonist must confront a possible loss of heart and home, and in The Death of the Heart, Bowen's protagonist is faced with an actual loss of freedom and mobility. Thus, through a study of these two novels, Welty's focus on place as it relates to roots and tradition, and Bowen's fascination with place as it relates to continual movement and progress, become apparent.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["I Don't Know Why You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello: Concepts of Place in Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter and Elizabeth Bowen's The Death of the Heart"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Michael Mays","Kenneth Watson","Kate Cochran"],"dc:creator":["Cooley, Emily Frances"],"dc:date.available":["2019-01-10T08:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["The Optimist's Daughter and The Death of the Heart reveal that, for Eudora Welty and Elizabeth Bowen, place is· more than mere landscape. Place is both the scene upon which their novels unfold and the means by which they convey their abstract understandings of the world. Place provides the physical settings of their stories, but it also reveals something about their psyche or symbolic language. The settings used by Welty in The Optimist's Daughter reinforce traditional notions of place in Southern life and society whereas the settings employed by Bowen in The Death of the Heart exhibit a partiality for mobility over rootedness. In The Optimist's Daughter, Welty's protagonist must confront a possible loss of heart and home, and in The Death of the Heart, Bowen's protagonist is faced with an actual loss of freedom and mobility. Thus, through a study of these two novels, Welty's focus on place as it relates to roots and tradition, and Bowen's fascination with place as it relates to continual movement and progress, become apparent.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/612"],"dc:subject":["Arts and Humanities","English Language and Literature"],"dc:title":["I Don't Know Why You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello: Concepts of Place in Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter and Elizabeth Bowen's The Death of the Heart"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["English"],"thesis:degree_level":["Masters Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Arts (MA)"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:45:12Z"}