Lily Daw and the Three Ladies Short Story Analysis

Eudora Welty has made an impact on the women’s rights movements by discussing everyday social problems through her stories. She talks about the disadvantages of unequal marriages including unhappiness and domestic abuse, poverty, mental illness and the treatment of it, female empowerment which includes the right to abortion, the right to vote, and equalities among men and women. Her powerful stories are important because they were written about a century ago, and these are the problems that we are facing today, thus making her an important figure in the development of social ideas in the South. She spent her lifetime in Mississippi and wrote about everyday life there. Eudora Welty has used Lily’s mental disability in “Lily Daw and the Three Ladies” to employ the theme of isolation, hopelessness, and the lack of woman empowerment in the 1930s.

Lily’s mental impairment has always been the reason why she was segregated from the rest of society. Her mother died while she was a child, and her father was cruel to the point of attempting to murder her. She grew up alone in a run-down old house with missing front steps and yellowed windows, and thus her upbringing had shaped her into a more resilient person. The ladies regard Lily as a "grown-up," but they overlook the fact that her maturity stems from her isolation from the outside world (Welty 5).  

The ladies are convinced at first that going to the institute is the right thing to do, bringing God into the matter. “‘We’ve all asked God, Lily.’ said Mrs.Carson finally, ‘and God seemed to tell us- Mr. Carson, too- that the place where you ought to be, so as to be happy, was Ellisville’” (Welty 8). The story's mention of God demonstrates Welty's interest in how characters act in social contexts and how they react to the same information when they are alone. Using God to persuade Lily is because the ladies believe that “Lily may have reinforced her private world to that point where the temptations of the public world may no longer have the effect of bringing her back to social stability” (Davis). She is once again cut off from her own decisions, clearly contradicting the ladies' belief that she has matured. Lily is preparing her hope-chest before going off to get married in the story, and she takes it with her even when her plans change. She forgets about the hope-chest aboard the train towards the end, symbolizing that she has lost hope and is once again isolated. 

Welty’s use of powerful imagery to describe social interactions and activities in the 1930s has given us so much insight into the treatment of mental disability in the south. Lily has been portrayed as a character in the 1930s society that needs constant attention and other people’s opinion than her own because she is thought to not be able to make her own decisions. When the ladies inquire about Lily’s whereabouts to Ed at the beginning of the story, Mrs. Carson says “‘Why she is not. She’s going to Ellisville, Ed’” (Welty 4). At this point of the story, Lily has no idea about the institute, and Mrs. Carson's tone of speech suggests that going to the institute is still not her choice but the ladies', and they think that marriage is not a good choice for her right now. Lily is going to make a significant transition in her life, whether through marriage or institute, and she is terrified of the future. That is why she made a hope chest so that she could have something stable in her life. This can be compared to Sheldon from Big Bang Theory who says his spot on the couch is “a single point of consistency in an ever-changing world” (“The Cushion Saturation” 06:15). Both of these characters have a desire for security and a need for something in their lives that resembles safety.

Eudora Welty’s photograph book has one photo that describes the theme of isolation. This seems to look like the same house Lily daw has lived in for the better part of her life, during which she was beaten and gradually transitioned into adulthood following the death of her father. The home is broken on all sides, with boulders and cement blocks cascading down the walls and creaky, splintered wooden stairs in front. It looks hollow and dark inside, there is no windows or door, emphasizing how there is no protection to the house. This house can be used to compare Lily as a character in the story. Lily is beautiful, young and a smart girl but her mental disability has made her life much harder. Just like the house, she is still standing, but with no proper protection from her parents from an early age, there is a lot of things that are hindering her life. Just like this house, she is alone as well as isolated. 

Welty used Lily’s mental condition to canvass the lack of women's rights movement and female empowerment in the 1930s. Lily has always been an outcast, a hopeless, vulnerable character as she has no choice of her own. Welty used this imagery to describe the situation of women in the 1930s. Women were generally powerless when it came to big decisions, and had very little rights. In Mississippi, women weren’t allowed to vote until 1984, much later than most other countries or states, clearly showing the slow development of modern social ideas in the South (Mississippi and the 19th amendment (U.S. National Park Service)). When the ladies found out that Lily had sex with the xylophone player, they immediately wanted her to get married in a fashion of “shot-gun wedding”. Lily was forced out from the train and was told to get married, leaving her with no choice of her own. This lack of modern ideologies can still be found in the South. The isolation Lily Daw faces is due to her being shown as an outcast from society because of her mental impairment. This could represent how women were generally outcasted from the political and socio-economic side of the world. 

Using Lily's disabilities, Welty was able to depict how society in the 1930s functioned. She addressed women's rights as well as how disabled people were oppressed in the then-underdeveloped nation. She also highlighted how the theme of isolation and hopelessness lingered around in Lily’s life as she was thrown from going to the institute to get married, all without a choice of her own.