Post # 7

I just finished reading Welty’s “The Demonstrators” and Suzan Harrison’s piece about Welty. At first, while I was reading “The Demonstrators” I was confused about a number of things. First, I didn’t understand the crowd that was looking at Rudy and why they kept having such strange reactions to the doctor (they laughed at weird times, wouldn’t explain what happened, didn’t help catch the guinea pigs). I was also confused when Welty started going into the doctor’s past—at first I wasn’t entirely sure how this related.


Given that “The Demonstrators” was written during a tumultuous time I think this might shed some light on the meaning of the title. But this still puzzles me and I’m not entirely sure if it’s referring to those who watched Rudy die, or Rudy and Dove’s act which could demonstrate race issues/instability/marital problems, or possibly the title could mean something entirely different that I missed.

It stuck out to me that Dr. Strickland could barely recognize his own maid and realized that she was “the maid” in a very matter of fact way. It seemed strange that she had been cleaning his office five days a week and he couldn’t even recognize her. Perhaps this shows his lack of perception—possibly this is what drove his wife away and caused her to angrily tell him, “You won’t tell Herman Fairbrooks what’s the matter with him.”

The significance of the newspaper also confused me at first but after reading Harrison I realized it highlights the significance of reading, of the media, and of the biased news article at the end of the text (which I thought was Welty’s way of pointing out how poorly the media reports violence against blacks).

White kept coming up in the story (white dress, white apron, white tea pot). Harrison notes that the white dress indicated Rudy’s position in white society. Also, it could show how whites wanted to make blacks more like themselves but at the same time in a certain uniform that would make them readily identifiable as hired help.

I liked Harrison’s explanation of the guinea pigs, “unlike the guinea pigs of medical research controlled by and subjected to the intentions of human researchers, these creatures are wild and uncontrollable. Running in all directions, distracting and tripping the doctor…” This might be a stretch but I think some parallels can be drawn between the freedom of the guinea pigs and the freedom Rudy realizes in her death—finally she’s not under the control of Dove and no longer has to be a maid to the white people.

I really want to discuss this story and maybe get some closure to whether or not Dove actually did hurt Rudy or if this double attack was a set up. Finally, I’m curious as to what other people thought about how Welty depicts race relations in this story. I might be reading too much into things but I felt like this story reflected the unruly nature of the 60s and captured the reaction of an old-fashioned white man to this changing world.