Eudora Welty's first book "A Curtain of Green" is a book of some of her collected short stories (Overview). The uniqueness of this book is that all of the stories in the book are linked through having a character or characters needs and wants brought out. All of the plots revolve around a characters relationship with another or a character's conflict. Welty tends to use marriage in her stories in "A Curtain of Green", to show the characters feelings or wants (Tutorial session). The stories in "A Curtain of Green" are also related through the fact that the titles all symbolize the conflict. Eudora didn"t just randomly pick short stories for her first book she put the stories together to show organization and character insight.
Two good examples of the plot revolving around two characters feelings for each other through marriage are " A Piece of News", and "The Whistle". In "A Piece of News" the two main characters are Ruby and Clyde Fisher. The conflict in this story is in the words of an article in the newspaper. The article read, "Mrs. Ruby Fisher had the misfortune to be shot in the leg by her husband this week" (Welty, P. 23, L. 18). Well, this Ruby Fisher knew she hadn"t been shot but she felt scared. She let her imagination run as she waited for her husband to get home. In Ruby's imagination, she thought of Clyde shooting her. "All the time he would be wild, shouting, and all distracted, to think he could never touch her one more time" (P. 27, L 2). After the thought Ruby became scared. Already I have gathered, through her marriage, that she doesn"t completely trust her husband. Ruby gives me the feeling in that line that maybe he has abused her in his blind rage and not realizing what he's doing, "and all distracted to think." When Clyde comes in the short story by walking into the house from out of the rain he immediately asked for his food. Through the marriage we, the readers, see how her husband dominates Ruby.
