A Visit of Charity

Freewriting for Essay 1 “A Visit of Charity”The theme of this story selfishness blinding society to the needs of others.This short story was written by American author Eudora Welty and it was first published in the 1941. A Visit of Charity” the question I asked myself was, why Marian was so mean, disrespectful, and unfriendly to the old women she came to visit? During her visit, Marian was not only mean to old women, she also gives them names by calling, the first old woman a bird and the second a sheep. One instance was when the old woman on the chair asked Marian, ‘’what do you do at school”, her replied was “I do not know”. For me, that was kind of mean and disrespectful because the old woman was only trying to be nice, but Marian did not give her a chance. At the end of the story. Marian rushed out of the building in tears and stop to grab an apple that she hided underneath a shrub before entering the old women’s room. The reason she hid the apple was because she did not want to share the apple with anyone. Marian seems like quite a selfish person as her motives are strictly based on what she will gain from the experience rather than the effect that it will have on the old ladies that she is visiting. She doesn’t turn up at these places out of the goodness of her heart or because she wants to help people, but simply to gain credit points as a Campfire Girl for being charitable. The story does not speak of selfishness blinding society to the needs of others, but it specifically focuses on that of selfishness associated with the treatment of elderly in nursing homes. Marian describes the room in which the two old ladies are staying as comparable to a jail, small, wet, dark and with a closed door. The nurse that leads Marian to the ladies’ room acts as if though she is the prison guard rather than a nurse. Marian is not meant to represent one person, but rather a whole society who have become insensitive to the needs of the elderly. In the conclusion of this story, “Love” is totally lacking in the story because the way the two old women were cursing at each other was not acceptable. No matter what condition a person maybe in, we should try to help and be kind to them. We should not let our selfishness to be the curse of treating people bad because no condition is permanent.