摘 要

《三角洲婚礼》是尤多拉·韦尔蒂的第一部长篇小说，讲述了费尔柴尔德一家为家族的年轻女孩达布妮与种植园监工特洛伊准备婚礼的故事。小说中有大量的物件书写，不仅帮助描绘了费尔柴尔德家族的日常生活，更重要的是， 揭示了二十世纪二十年代美国南方的社会变化。本论文借助“物转向”批评话语,通过分析小说中的景观、家居之物、礼物等书写，揭示南方文化、南方家庭以及南方淑女在特定历史时期所经历的身份焦虑。

关键词：尤多拉·韦尔蒂；《三角洲婚礼》；“物转向”；景观；家居之物； 礼物；身份焦虑

Contents

1. Introduction 1
2. Demonstration 3
   1. Landscape writings and identity anxiety of the southern culture 3
      1. Cemetery and graves of the Fairchilds 4
      2. The Yellow Dog/Yazoo-Delta train 6
   2. Domestic objects and identity anxiety of the southern family 7
      1. Domestic objects in Shellmound 8
      2. Decoration of Marmion 10
      3. The furniture in George’s flat 11
   3. Gifts and identity anxiety of the southern lady 12
      1. Dabney’s night light 13
      2. Ellen’s garnet brooch 14
3. Conclusion 17

Works Cited 18

Bibliography 20

Identity, Anxiety, and the Changing South:

A Material Cultural Study of Delta Wedding

Introduction

• 1. Introduction of Eudora Welty and Delta Wedding

Born on April 13, 1909 in Jackson, Mississippi, Eudora Welty is one of the most prominent writers in the twentieth-century America. As a prolific writer whose literary career spanned seven decades, Welty published over forty short stories, five novels, three works of nonfiction, and one children's book. Most of her fictional works focus on the ups and downs of Southern family and family relationships, revealing the great impact which was exerted on the southern culture by changes of southern society. Her intimate portraits of Mississippi life, her modernist techniques, her wit, and her vast allusions brought her international fame and many honors which include a Pulitzer Prize, the Howells’ Medal for Fiction, the Gold Medal for Fiction, the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, just to name a few.

Delta Wedding is set in 1923’s Mississippi Delta, with the Fairchilds, a large southern family who live in a plantation being the main characters. The story begins with recently motherless Laura MacRaven’s taking a train to visit the Fairchilds a week before the wedding of her cousin, Dabney Fairchild and the plantation overseer Troy Flavin. Delta Wedding, in addition to the wedding preparations, portraits the ordinary events of family life, which makes the book appear simple and uneventful at first glance. Yet as Reine Dugas Bouton wrote, “in true Welty style, this novel is about nothing and everything all at once”（xiii）.

• 1. Literature Review

As Eudora Welty’ s first full-length work of fiction, Delta Wedding received some negative criticism when it was published in 1946. For example, New York Post writer Sterling North thought “the pace unbearably slow, the writing precious, flowery, and needlessly obscure and the technique amateurish”(54-55). Yet the

reception of Delta Wedding at that time was mostly positive and today, it is seen as a classic among the canon of American literature.