A War of Strength: Femininity Against Masculinity in A Piece of News and Flowers for Marjorie

By comparing Eudora Welty’s short stories A Piece of News and Flowers for Marjorie, this essay attempts to discuss how femininity and masculinity are represented, as well as how femininity struggles against masculinity within families and society. In both stories, there are obvious conflicts between man and woman which lead to different tragic consequences. Welty is writing to show women’s agony and inferiority within the family and men’s absolute power of dominance on the one hand, she is also writing about men’s struggle and resignation within the family and the society on the other hand. This comparative reading of the short stories from the feminist perspective offers us a better vision of Welty’s theme: isolation and alienation split couples and beat down their fragile love