Ellen Gilchrist has made a career of unveiling the problems and positions of wealthy southern Americans. One of the strongest voices from the 20th century American south, she has published 11 short story collections, seven novels, and two books each of essays and poetry. Gilchrist is currently a professor at the University of Arkansas' M.F.A. in creative writing program, and continues to turn out dark, witty, strong and pointed stories of greed and tradition. Here is a close look at her first such story, published in 1981.
Traditional New Orleans
"Rich" is a masterful story focused on one particular wealthy New Orleans family, but it is stuffed full with descriptions of the entire "Roman Catholic hierarchy that dominates the life of the city that care forgot." The pace of the writing throughout is a fast clip, never losing momentum for an instant of its 23 single-spaced pages.
Third Person Narration
A third-person omniscient narrator tells the story in a matter-of-fact, consistently upbeat manner. The narrative is framed by an ongoing discussion of the different types of wealth the central family had. The first paragraph begins, "Tom and Letty Wilson were rich in everything. They were rich in friends because Tom was vice-president of the Whitney Bank of New Orleans..." and as the piece progresses, whenever one strain has been carried on long enough and it is time to reign things back in to the central storyline, a new paragraph will begin "The Wilsons were rich in X."-houses, children, knowing exactly who they were...etc...This works to keep the reader's attention, and to weave all the mini-narratives together cohesively.
Dark and Ironic Narration
The story is funny, in a dark, ironic way-the narrator is both inside the minds of the characters and outside them, looking in with a perfect understanding of their motivations and the mechanical structure of the society they live in. In one instance, there is a description of the drug store on the Wilson's block. The narrator, in describing the superiority of this drugstore over other, less fancy ones in other parts of town, points out that the neighborhood parents could order any type of drug they wanted from this place, and that while the kids still had to buy their drugs from a fourteen-year-old boy in Audubon park, they were allowed all the candy and ice cream they wanted from the drugstore, to be charge to their family accounts. This kind of switch from the description of the drugstore and its gingerbread trim (a cut above typical chain stores in town) to kids having to by their drugs in the park is standard Gilchrist humor-unexpected, ironic, and each time, thrilling.
Strong Dialogue
There is dialogue between fraternity brothers, married couples, parents and their children, and rich white people and the poor black people they employ. All of it is carried with such grace, and with such mild distinctions in tone and attitude, that is feels like it could not be a made up story-it is too true to doubt. Gilchrist exposes some of the brutality, anger, and hideous greed of the New Orleans wealthy society through her story's children, who speak without the learned polite filter of adults.
Childhood Honesty
When the Wilson's spoiled adopted daughter wants ice cream, she says to he mother, "Why can't I have any ice cream?" When she is told by a maid to give her brother a turn on the porch-swing, she blurts out, "You're just a high yeller nigger, and you can't make me do anything."
A Horrifying Final Scene
"Rich" is full of horrors, and ends with a gruesome murder-suicide, but it manages to escape depressing the reader with its humor and its richness, and by moving quickly through scenes of violence to sharp, well-placed insights about the attitudes and priorities of the remaining characters. In the last full scene, Tom Wilson shoots his dog, his daughter, and himself-and the final comment from the narrator is that none of the townspeople believed it was an intentional slaughter-after all, it was unimaginable that a man would kill his 3,000 dollar pure bred dog.
Gilchrist, Ellen. In The Land of Dreamy Dreams. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1981.
For more on fiction from the American South, visit these suite101 articles on the work of Flannery O'Connor and Susan Straight.
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