The Optimist's Daughter is a 1973 novel by Eudora Welty.
This rather short novel (208 pages, and that in a small-sized book with large type) centers on Laurel McKelvy Hand, a middle-aged widow who travels from Chicago to New Orleans to see her ailing father, Judge McKelvy. The Judge has gone into the hospital for eye surgery after suffering an injury to his retina. Laurel stays by her father's bedside, accompanied only by Fay, her father's awful, shrewish second wife. The surgery is anticipated to be minor, but the Judge sickens and dies for no obvious reason. Laurel is left to go along with Fay as the two of them bring Judge McKelvy's body home to Mississippi for the funeral.
Tropes:
- Death by Despair: The Judge's rapid decline and death when he was only in the hospital for eye surgery isn't really expained, but the strong indication is that Fay the screeching harpy drove her husband to his death by sheer unpleasantness.
- Disturbed Doves: A flock of birds is disturbed and sent flying away as Judge McKelvy's coffin is carried to his grave in the cemetery. This trope is then inverted when Laurel looks back and sees the birds settling down where they were, after the people have left.
- Establishing Character Moment: There are a lot of such moments for Fay in the early going, starting with the first page where she is "tapping her sandaled foot" with impatience as the doctor comes in. Soon after she's said to be wearing pungent perfume. A few pages later she says "I don't see why this had to happen to me." She is immediately established as self-centered and unpleasant.
- It's All About Me: Fay reacts to the final decision that her husband will definitely have eye surgery by saying "I don't see why this had to happen to me." Immediately after she's told that the Judge has died she screams "You picked my birthday to do it on!"
- Jerkass Has a Point: Fay is portrayed throughout as an over-the-top, horrible screeching harpy of a woman. But she isn't wrong when she tears into Dr. Courtland for letting her husband, who after all was only in there for eye surgery, die. The narrative however obviously doesn't agree: "Dr. Courtland looked at her briefly, as if he ahd seen many like Fay." Laurel for her part is oddly uninterested about her own father dying in the hospital after eye surgery, saying "Some things don't bear going into."
- Let the Past Burn: Laurel burns all of the letters her parents sent each other, symbolic of her saying goodbye to the past.
- Perfumigation: Fay is "giving out perfume" as she walks across the office to give Dr. Courtland's chart a closer look. Her wearing overbearing perfume is just one of the ways she's drawn as unpleasant.
- Please Wake Up: While this trope is usually played for drama or pathos, here it's part of Fay's It's All About Me histrionics. Laurel is not happy when Fay makes her first appearance in the sitting room, goes over to the coffin, and say "Oh, hon, get up, get out of there."
- Posthumous Character: Judge McKelvy's first wife Becky, Laurel's mother. Frequently discussed, thought about by Laurel many times. She was a proper Southern belle, in contrast to Fay the awful shrew.
- Spiteful Spit: How awful is Fay? When Laurel takes note of her father's deteriorating condition and says "I believe he's dying," Fay turns around and spits at her.
- Trophy Wife: Fay, the elderly Judge's second wife, is 40, which makes her younger than Laurel.
