Petrified Man Analysis

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The short story “Petrified Man” by Eudora Welty is about two women—Leota, a beautician, and Mrs. Fletcher, her customer—who spend the entire story gossiping in a beauty parlor. The story is told in a limited third-person point of view, where the psychic distance of the view places the reader right next to Mrs. Fletcher and Leota, hearing and seeing only what someone present in the scene would. Their gossip tells the reader the stories of this piece, that of Mr. and Mrs. Pike and of the Petrified Man. However, this is not the main focus. Welty uses this short story to comment on the appearance obsessed, judgmental, and flighty nature of people, especially southern women. This is done through Mrs. Fletcher’s comments about what Mrs. Pike must …show more content…

Fletcher is not the only one obsessed with looks. Leota is a beautician after all. The setting of the story taking place in a beauty parlor is significant, as is Leota’s job as a beautician. Leota’s character is almost stereotypical in appearance from what is learned, she has black and blond hair, long red nails, and obsessed with a single pastel color, lavender (Welty 1094). Her occupation is to enhance the beauty of women but it is no secret that she lives up to the gossiper stereotype surrounding beauticians. There is not a single person who does not gossip with the person who cuts their hair, especially if they go to a beauty shop. In this shop, the ugliness of gossip and judgment rears its head, ironic is a place where women come to make themselves …show more content…

Pike by Leota. During the first half of the story she tells Mrs. Fletchers “Mrs. Pike is a lovely girl, you’d be crazy about her” but in the latter half of the story she says “she goes around actin’ like she thinks she was Mrs. God” (Welty 1097, 1102). Just a week had gone by and went from saying she was lovely to arrogant. That also applies to Billy, the Pikes’ son. At first Leota says “he couldn’t hurt a thing” but later says “that mean, bad little ole kid here, getting’ under my feet ever’ minute of the day an’ talkin’ back too” (Welty 1096, 1102). Her jealously of Mrs. Pike getting that reward led to Leota changing her perceptions of them. She doesn’t even care that Mrs. Pike helped catch a man wanted for raping four women, she boils them down to “be[ing] worth a hundred an’ twenty-five bucks apiece” or rather she assumed that was how Mrs. Pike would feel (1103). But it doesn’t seem that she’d be offended if she did, she was angry she didn’t get that reward, because it was her

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