Mythological Parallels in The Golden Apples.
Eudora Welty uses techniques of allusion and the mythological method to establish parallels between Greek mythology and the characters and incidents in The Golden Apples. .
The mythological method, coined by T. S. Elliot, is richer than an allusion. Using the mythological method a writer is able to replace characters in mythology with his or her own creations.
Welty's title, The Golden Apples, was the original title of the short story "June Recital." However, the title itself comes from a line in Yeats's poem "The Song of the Wandering Aengus." .
And pluck till time and times are done.
The silver apples of the moon.
The golden apples of the sun. .
In "Shower of Gold", King Maclain is identified as Zeus. His godlike limitations are shown; as he is a man "who has treated his wife so shamefully as to be a person of great fascination." (Demmin 243) Snowdie Hudson is recognized Danae, because Kings effect on her is to leave her looking as if "a shower of something had struck her, like she"d been caught out in something bright." (Welty 6) "Snowdie lives in a house built for her by her father. In the Greek myth, Danae was confined in a tower." (Bowman 113) .
King Maclain and Snowdie's children can be identified as Perseus, or Caster and Pollux. They are "clearly King's heirs and the inheritors of his power." (Souques 111) The inheritance is made known when King returns home after one of his frequent and mysterious absences and is frightened off by the boys, who are wearing Halloween masks. The fact that they frighten him may only mean that he recognizes his own power. "He must fear his sons as Zeus does." (Demmin 243).
In "Sir Rabbit", King's power is clearly shown to have been passed to his sons. The sun light imagery leaves no doubt as to the identification: "at moments the sun would take hold of their arms with a bold dart of light, or rest on their wetted, shaken hair, or splash over their pretty clothes like the torn petals of a sunflower.
