Eudora Welty - Powerhouse

           In reading the ‘Powerhouse’ by Eudora Welty, I found it to be a very interesting short story.  The basic theme in the story is the power of the creative imagination.  Imagination is what gives Powerhouse his ability to cast a spell over his audience.  He draws his audience into reality through his voice and his piano and with the members of his band.  The energy that appears from Powerhouse is something beyond the limits of the ordinary existence.  The power that comes from him changes ordinary lives, allowing others to experience the world in a different way.  Powerhouse’s imagination enables him to give expression to his fears such as the jive story about the death of his wife and Uranus Knockwood, the singer who had taken Powerhouse’s place with his wife.  Powerhouse produces an imaginative reality that he may encounter and chase away, so that he can continue to function as a man of the world.  The setting contributes to the strength of the theme.  Powerhouse is a black musician playing in the segregated South, a place where black people cannot even come into the hall and dance to his music.  This gives added grief and gloom to the already depressing circumstances of the human condition.  Powerhouse understands the nature of his imagination, when the waitress asks him about the “real truth” of his wife and he tells her that the event didn’t happen.  He goes on to say that “Truth is something worse” – the real facts of humankind’s life are horrible.  Powerhouse believes that he has the ability to grasp the truth and then relate it to others.  The inference is that he will relate it as a musician through the medium of his music, through the jazz blues that he plays.  In this short story, Welty tries to accomplish a thoughtful version of the setting, her native Mississippi.  She uses the technique of presenting Powerhouse first through the voice of the small-town white narrator.  The narrator plainly represents the local feelings of this segregated community.  Powerhouse is a black man performing before an all-white audience.  He is the kind of person who will take one beyond the limits of his known existence and such people seem dangerous.  The word patterns are strong and lyrical in the opening section.  There is a stream of phrases and incomplete sentences that helps to create the excitement of the subject and to take the reader beyond the limits of an ordinary story.  Welty shows herself to be a master of dialogue, as the jive among the band members achieves its own kind of lyricism.  The use of language in this short story is a tribute to the creative power of the imagination.  This was a great story and I enjoyed reading it.                                          

Ronald L. Johnson. "Powerhouse." Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition. Salem Press, 2004. eNotes.com. 2006. 28 Mar, 2011