Eudora
Welty adopts double identities as a core artistic device to explore cultural
tensions and value reconciliations, which culminates in her novella The
Robber Bridegroom. Set on the multicultural Natchez Trace in the late 18th
century, the work merges Southern traditionalism with modernist aesthetics,
integrating history, folk legends and fairy-tale elements. Focusing on the dual
identities of Jamie Lockhart and Rosamond—bandit/gentleman and naive
maiden/planter’s daughter—it unfolds conflicts between virtue and vice,
tradition and modernity. Welty dismantles simplistic binaries, revealing the
doubleness of human nature and Southern society, and conveys profound
reflections on cultural inheritance and human complexity.
