Plot Summary
Set in Welty's native Deep South, The Optimist's Daughter tells the story of Laurel McKelva Hand as she comes to terms with loss: most immediately with the loss of her father, but also with the more distant losses of her mother and her husband. The novel opens in New Orleans, where Laurel has traveled from her home in Chicago to be with her father, Judge McKelva, who has sought treatment for a slipped retina. Laurel's stepmother, Fay, a woman a few years younger than Laurel, also attends her father.In the course of the novel, Laurel endures not only the death of her father, but also the humiliation of having Fay, a selfish and superficial woman, supplant her in her family home. (Fay's first response to hearing of Judge McKelva's condition was, "I don't see why this had to happen to me [8]). The novel follows Laurel as she comes to terms with these losses before returning to her life in Chicago.
What Can We Learn from Welty about Sentimentality?
As even this brief synopsis shows, Welty has taken on some weighty and emotional material in "The Optimist's Daughter." Despite this fact, she manages to avoid sentimentality while creating an emotionally complex character and leading the reader to a highly pitched climax. She succeeds by exercising control over her subject matter through structure and pacing, and relying on action and figurative language to show Laurel's emotions.Focus on Structure and Pacing
Poetry provides many examples of writers using structure, or form, to rein in the worst impulses associated with emotional subject matter. For instance, Elizabeth Bishop chose a highly structured form, the sestina, for her most confessional poem, "One Art." Though novelists don't have ready-made forms to help them privilege craft over emotion, they can nonetheless create a structure for their novel, as Welty does.
For "The Optimist's Daughter," Welty borrows the three-part structure of a play. In the first part, she gives us Judge McKelva's illness and death; in the second, Laurel and Fay return to Mount Salus, Mississippi, for the burial; and in the third, Laurel confronts the past and reconciles herself to it. In the first two sections, Welty adheres strictly to the old maxim, "Show, don't tell." We are rarely in Laurel's head, but perceive her emotions through figurative language and action. Only in the third section does Welty let us hear Laurel's more intimate thoughts.
In addition to using structure, Welty also carefully controls the novel's pacing. Nothing feels rushed or unnecessary about the entire novel. As a result, Welty earns our trust. Furthermore, the early control lends Laurel's eventual display of emotion more power. Because both she and her main character maintain control through most of the novel, Welty ensures that we pay attention when Laurel does give vent to her feelings in the last section of the novel.
