Welty's principal theme in The Robber Bridegroom is the duality of experience, the gap between appearance and reality. This is a human concern that spans all times and places; it is a truth verified in history, legend, fairy tale, and myth alike. People and things are not always what they seem to be, and an innocent man like Welty's planter working his way through a dualistic world is bound to suffer. Furthermore, Welty attests through the relationship of her young lovers, the planter's daughter and the bandit-gentleman, that duplicity in human relationship leads to distrust and suffering.
One of Welty's favorite motifs throughout her fiction is the function of memory and the past, usually personal memory. Here, however, she uses history and the collective memory of western civilization — in.....
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