When I think of the south, I think of southern hospitality. I picture people always talking to each other, whether it's just small talk or gossip, which is the case in The Petrified Man. The dialogue itself appears to be pretty accurate (from what I can imagine anyway, since I've never been down south). The south definitely has a certain way of talking and Eudora Welty does a great job showing us, not just telling us, this dialect. From the very first sentence of the story, you know where you are, and the type of people involved in the story. "Reach in my purse and git me a cigarette without no powder in it if you kin, Mrs. Fletcher, honey ... I don't like no perfumed cigarettes."

As for the events themselves, they appear to be reasonably honest. If you allow yourself to just listen to the story as it's being told, instead of trying to analyze it's validity (it is fiction after all) you will believe you're sitting in Leota's beauty parlor with Mrs. Fletcher and Leota talking about anything or anybody. It doe

sn't matter exactly what you're talking about, as long as it takes the attention away from your own lives, if just for an hour or two. Although some people might be offended at the gesture that all the women in the south sit around and just talk about everyone else, I think it's accurate. Not just in the south, and not just with women. For some reason, people find comfort in talking about other people's lives and forgetting about theirs for a little while.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Fletcher Leota, Leota Fletcher, Eudora Welty, Pike Leota, Eudora Welty's, Pike Jealous, Billy Boy, Leota Pike, people talking, talking pregnancy, beauty parlor, cared people talking, pike jealous, cared people, leota fletcher, story don't, people talking pregnancy, pike leota, leota talked, pike leota talked, listen story,
Approximate Word count = 815
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)