Inside the Mind of A Murderer
A Nameless Killer in “Where Is the Voice Coming From?”
Writers can be emotionally impacted by an event to the point where they feel the urge to write about it.
Dismayed and infuriated, Eudora Welty penned “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” the same night she learned about the murder of Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963. This tragic event happened during the time she was working on her novel Losing Battles. However, she was extremely affected by the murder and furiously inked the whole short story in a day. Then she tenaciously revised it and mailed it off to The New Yorker a mere eleven days after Medgar Evers’ life was stolen by a hidden gunman (Hargrove 75–76). Welty wrote this story in first person point of view in an attempt to illustrate the mind of a killer (81). “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” is right in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement. The nameless narrator snatches the life of Roland Summers away in a futile attempt to retain his sense of racial superiority (Harrison). Eudora Welty uses the fiery nature of racism to illustrate the volatile impact it can have on lives in “Where Is the Voice Coming From?”.
Roughly after June 12 officially began, Medgar Evers stepped out of his car intending to re-enter his home in Jackson, Mississippi.
Evers was a field secretary of the NAACP and was returning home after a rally. Instead of entering his home, a bullet invaded his back. The bullet not only ripped through skin and muscle but also through many lives. Medgar Evers’ life was abruptly cut short. However, his murder gave birth to Eudora Welty’s “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” (Hargrove 75).
It is no secret that Eudora Welty is from the South; she is from Jackson, Mississippi. Throughout her writing career, various critics released their opinions about her refusal to consistently confront racial inequality. Alice Walker asked her if she genuinely knew a black person beyond simply passing them on the street (Flower, 332). While Welty shied away from speaking about race and racial inequality in the South, her stories were injected with diversity. Racial injustice happened in the plot of her stories, but she did not confront it with her own opinions. She simply depicted it as part of the lives of her characters. Dean Flower claims, “That was Welty’s way of going beyond racism” (332). While her stories included complex black characters from various walks of life, she rarely used them to attack racism. She did not come forward and state that the South was horrid or speak about the consistent racial injustice. However, that does not automatically put Welty on the opposite side (331–332).
Throughout the story the reader never learns the main character’s name.
The reader never discovers how tall he is or how he wears his hair. However, Welty injects copious amounts of information about his perspective on the town he calls home and his personality (Hargrove 82). The first thing that the audience learns is that the narrator is racist. The main character says to his wife, “You can reach and turn it off. You don’t have to set and look at a black nigger face no longer than you want to, or listen to what you don’t want to hear. It’s still a free country” (Welty 603). The racial slur glides off his tongue just like any other word in his limited vocabulary. The story offers the readers various details about his life through his monologue. His mind consistently points out material possessions that Roland has. When Roland pulls up, the narrator notices that his new. Even after he has killed Roland, his mind still manages to notice unimportant details like his paved driveway and that his grass is “mighty green” (604–605).
It appears as though he cannot believe that a black person could possibly be doing better than he is. After Roland is dead, the narrator notices and comments on Roland’s yard:
“ It was mighty green where I skint over the yard getting back. That nigger wife of his, she wanted nice grass! I bet my wife would hate to pay her water bill. And for her burning electricity. And there’s my brother-in-law’s truck, still waiting with the door open.”(605)
Roland Summers has barely been dead a few minutes. A woman’s life is being shattered at that very moment, and the main character is scoffing about green grass and an electricity bill he does not pay. He commented on their burning electricity, but he later whines to his wife about how she did not leave a light on for him.
When he tells his wife about what he did, she never offers any credit to him.
She tells him that people will say he did it for the city instead of for himself. The news mediums will claim the killer murdered Roland to fight back against the Civil Rights Movement. However, the narrator previously stated that he killed Roland Summers for his own “pure-D satisfaction” (604). He repeats it during the conversation with his wife on the next page. His wife goes on to give her opinion on various factors of his actions. “’Well, hear another good joke on you’ my wife says next. ‘Didn’t you hear the news. The N. Double A.C.P. is fixing to send somebody to Thermopylae. Why couldn’t you waited? You might could have got somebody better. Listen and hear ’em say so’” (605). She never says anything that even leans towards supportive. It is during this conversation that the reader can infer that he does not have a close relationship to his wife. Analyzing both of their vocabularies could uncover that they are uneducated. Charles Clerc notes the narrator’s frequent use of southern vernacular and improper English (391). Both of their word choices are similar. They use words like ‘em’, ‘yonder’, and ‘skint’ (Welty 603–605).
The Civil Rights Movement was a push against the various laws and ideologies put in place to keep minorities inferior to whites.
“Where Is the Voice Coming From?” is set right in the middle of this tense time period. The United States had a racial hierarchy in place through laws, media representation, traditions, and society’s mindset. It was anything but subtle. The Civil Rights Movement challenged that and demanded a change. It sought out to shed light on the consistent injustice and provide a call to action. However, the story is placed right in the heart of change. Representation in the media about black people was scarce, until the Civil Rights Movement (Harrison). When Roland is murdered, he is in the newspaper and on TV (Welty 606). When the Civil Rights Movement became more than just something for white people to find amusement in, the news mediums began to cover it and take it seriously (Harrison).
Thermopylae is completely fictional. Welty intertwines subtle, but crucial details into the narrator’s monologue. While the town is built entirely from words on a page, it mirrors what an actual small town in the South would look and feel like during that time period. Thermopylae is set in the South during what is essentially a Cold War against the two races. The Civil Rights Movement is pushing for change and the white people that believe in inequality are doing everything they can to push back. The tension between the two groups is as thick as the heat in Thermopylae (Clerc 389). Welty uses words to build vivid settings, complex characters, and intricate entanglements. While her works show different perspectives of life, they all intertwine to illustrate humans as they navigate through life (Chronaki 36). She draws inspiration from various surroundings and illustrates the place down to the subtle details. In “Where Is the Voice Coming From?”, she injects small details about Thermopylae to make it lively. The nameless narrator tells the reader details like the bank sign and the signs on stores as he passes them on the way to kill Roland Summers (Welty 603).
In Welty’s works, setting is not only the backdrop; it is intricate enough to also act as a character itself.
Thermopylae is a small town in the South. Not only is it in the middle of a racial Cold War, but it is also battling a heatwave. In the real world, Thermopylae does not exist. However, it is alive in Welty’s words. From the town’s exterior to the lives inside the city, the town mirrors a real southern town during this high-strung time period (Clerc 389). Charles Clerc paid close attention to the heat wave Thermopylae is enduring in the story. Frigid cold is what most northern states have to prepare for while boiling heat is what most southern states have to endure. Clerc points out that heat can have diverse meanings in “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” (393). The bank sign in Thermopylae shows the temperature; it reads ninety-two. When the main character is talking to his wife, he exclaims that the rifle was scorching. The killer walks through the town and the pavement is hot (Welty 603–606). Heat is consistently brought up throughout the story. Welty intertwines heat into the setting to show how aggressive the heat can be in the South. In the small town, it affects both the people and the inanimate objects.
Clerc compares heat to passion and ties it to the scorching nature of racism (393). The narrator brings up his rifle and plants a bullet in Roland’s back. They had never met before. The only thing the narrator knew about Roland Summers is his physical appearance and that he was in the NAACP. After Roland falls, the killer feels like he is on top of the world. He talks to Roland’s dead corpse:
“Roland? There was one way left, for me to be ahead of you and stay ahead of you, by Dad, and I just taken it. Now I’m alive and you ain’t. We ain’t never now, never going to be equals and you know why? One of us is dead. What about that, Roland?” (Welty 604)
The killer thinks that this will make him feel superior. However, throughout the rest of the story, he does not feel superior at all. All throughout “Where Is the Voice Coming From?”, the nameless killer and Roland are opposites. Roland is fighting for change; the narrator is fighting to keep things the same. Roland has a new car, lush grass, a paved driveway, and a light to welcome him back home. The killer has to borrow a truck, his yard is not maintained, his driveway is not paved, and his wife does not leave a light on to welcome him back home (Clerc 394). Readers can easily see the envy seeping in between the lines Welty penned.
“Where Is the Voice Coming From?” is written in first person, allowing the reader to be exposed to the mind of a killer.
His perspective on his surroundings intertwine with his actions to paint a picture of who the nameless main character is. He believes he is superior to black people simply because he is white. The fact that a black person could have a better life than him disgusts him. When he steals Roland’s life, he does it from behind the trees instead of to the man’s face. The act was supposed to make him feel powerful, but he had to hide himself to pull the trigger. He did not approach Roland until the life spilled out of him. Only then did he become bold. While the main character is racist and he does live in Thermopylae, he maintains that he did not kill him for the city. He repeatedly states that he did it for himself and no one else. However, Roland Summers never did anything to the main character (Hargrove 81–82).
The murderer believed taking Roland’s life would fix something; he thought it would restore his feelings of superiority. However, the killer’s spirits were only elevated briefly. The only time he felt as if he was on top of the world was when he was standing over Roland’s dead body. After he returns home his wife is anything but supportive. She even mocks him (Welty 605). When Roland’s murder surfaces on the news, the narrator is annoyed by all the coverage he gets. “His face was in the public before I got rid of him, and after I got rid of him there it is again- the same picture” the killer reveals (606). Then he goes on to say that he has never had his picture on the news. The only part of the news coverage the main character liked was when they claimed the murder was executed by an expert. For the duration of the story, only he and his wife know that he was the one that killed Roland Summers.
At the end of the story, the main character is alone. He grabbed his guitar and sat down to play. He began the story alone and the story ends with alone once again. He killed a man, watched the life spill underneath his feet, and stated that it was only to satisfy himself. He tells Roland’s dead body that it was to stay ahead of him. However, he was never ahead of him in the first place. His racist beliefs did nothing but take Roland Summers’ life (Welty 603–607).
Eudora Welty penned this five-page short story on the same night she learned about Medgar Evers’ assassination.
She gave birth to a nameless murderer to depict the mind of a killer. Not only does she expose readers to the mind of a murderer, but she also invites them to accompany him on his journey to act out his malicious intentions. He snatches Roland Summers’ life away from the safety of trees. He states that he did it for himself consistently throughout the story. He did not benefit from murdering Roland Summers in any way. His mood actually worsens after the town learns of the murder. The only thing the narrator did was steal a life and shatter others. He did not single-handedly prevent black people from gaining equality. The murder of Roland Summers did not destroy the NAACP. The assassination does not make the main character rich or famous. He is still the same poor, white man he was before he pulled a trigger on Roland from behind.
She lets the main character speak for himself through his narration. She never introduces her own thoughts into the story (Hargrove 84). She simply allows her words to transport the reader into the narrator’s world. Once the reader is there, she allows them to see the volatile effects racism can have on humankind. In “Where Is the Voice Coming From?”, Roland Summers loses his life because of the unjust beliefs that one race can automatically be superior over another. However, these events do not just happen in fictional towns. Roland Summers’ murder mirrors the murder of Medgar Evers in 1963. Authors coax inspiration from real life events, and that is exactly what Eudora Welty did when she determinedly penned this short story.
This piece was written during the fall semester this academic year as my research paper. The project was given to us at the beginning of the semester and due at the end for a whopping total of 300 points. I made an overall grade of a 94 after spending a decent amount of time researching, drafting, and editing this paper. So I decided to share it. I left it in MLA format for the most part, which is why you see the in-text citations. Feel free to leave any feedback or thoughts you might have. I also put the sources below if anyone is interested in further reading. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you have an amazing day!
Sources:
Chronaki, Bessie. “Eudora Welty’s Theory of Place and Human Relationships.” Southern Atlantic Bulletin, vol. 43, no 2, 1978, pp 36–44. JSTOR. Accessed 1 September 2017.
Clerk, Charles. “Anatomy of Welty’s “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” Studies In Short Fiction, vol. 23, no 4, 1986, pp 389–400. EBSCOhost. Accessed 1 September 2017.
Flower, Dean. “Eudora Welty and Racism.” “In Yoknapatawpha,” The Hudson Review, Vol. I, №4 by; William Faulkner’s Reply to the Civil-Rights Program by William Faulkner; Department of Amplification by; Eudora Welty: A Writer’s Life by Ann Waldron; A Perfect Lady by; Eudora Welty and Politics: Did the Writer Crusade? by Harriet Pollack and Suzanne Marrs; Eudora Welty: A Biography by Suzanne Marrs. The Hudson Review. Summer 2017. pp 325–332. JSTOR. Accessed 1 September 2017.
Hargrove, Nancy. “Portrait of an Assassin: Eudora Welty’s “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” The Southern Literary Journal, vol 20, no 1, 1987, pp 74–88. JSTOR. Accessed 1 September 2017.
Harrison, Suzan. “”It’s Still A Free Country”: Constructing Race, Identity, And History In Eudora Welty’s “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” Mississippi Quarterly, vol. 50, no.4, Fall 97. p. 631. EBSCOhost. Accessed 1 September 2017.
Welty, Eudora. “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty, Harcourt, 1980, pp 603–607.
