Blurred Reality
In “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty, the main protagonist, Phoenix Jackson, experiences a series of obstacles on her pursuit to acquire vital medication for her grandson. Phoenix is constantly delayed by delusions caused by the consequences of a shadowing past. The author uses a plethora of symbolism to create an emblematic explanation which connects the events on her trek to town, and her dark past as a slave. Her asperous memories, create a safety harness of delusions causing Phoenix to become caught between two realities: One that is burdened and realistic, and another that is imaginary and innocent.
In her burdened realty, Phoenix is an elderly lady who, wields a cane and cannot bend down to tie her own shoelaces which the
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It is explained by Welty that Phoenix went into the ditch very easily with much force when she says, “Over she went in the ditch, like a little puff of milkweed.” (Welty) This represents how easy it was for white men to enforce black men out of their homes and enslave them. To a white male, it was as regular as a little puff of milkweed being blown out by soft wind. As she lay in the ditch, the dog sits staring at her, satisfaction clear on his face. Welty shows this when she writes, “...now there he sitting on his fine tail, smiling at you.” (Welty) While she lay waiting, hoping for someone to find her, a white young hunter discovers her and assists her out of the ditch. Once she is back on her feet, she is immediately insulted and mocked about her age and intelligence; treated as an object to be used, beaten, and ridiculed. In Kevin Moberly’s article, “Toward the North Star: Eudora Welty’s ‘A Worn Path’ and the Slave Narrative Tradition,” he quotes Butterworth, “‘[t]he whites who confront Phoenix reflect the usual attitude of their generation towards the Negro.’”(Moberly 109). This man insulting Phoenix, is doing the exact same thing as he was taught growing up, which was to treat them as the intelligent beings they believed them to be. This white man handles a black dog which symbolizes the dark and devilish dominance they utilized while stealing the blacks from their lives and …show more content…
Her path to town is worn down with the past memories of enslavement but are disguised as a softer reality made to be less traumatic for Phoenix. Her entire journey symbolizes the movement to end slavery. Her grandson is the surrogate for the slaves she tries to free, and the healing medicine she seeks is the solution for ending slavery. This all supports that Phoenix’s encounters on her journey symbolize the stages of slavery all the way from white men taking blacks from their homes, to the final and victorious ending of slavery which Phoenix fought for in her past just as she fights for the
“A Worn Path” is a short story written by Eudora Welty. It is a story of an elderly black woman’s journey into town for her grandson’s medicine. Using lots of imagery throughout the story, the narrator tells us that the woman, Phoenix Jackson takes this dangerous journey out of love for her grandson who is in need of medicine. Throughout her journey, she encounters many people who are of great importance to the story.
Granny was much like Phoenix Jackson, they both had to overcome obstacles or challenges in life that made them stronger. Granny had to deal with the heartache and pain of being deceived and disappointed by what she thought was love and Phoenix had to overcome the obstacles of traveling a difficult Journey because of the love she had for her grandson. Fate can control humans’ lives and can help humans reach the end of the challenging path. Phoenix’s and Granny Weatherall’s ability to withstand and overcome these challenges shows their strong determination, and the will power to endure hardship and continue to be strong.
Eudora Welty presents the short story “A Worn Path” in a remarkable way, revealing a lot of symbolism. It travels around multiple themes throughout the story about an old aged woman walking through a grueling trail to a town to gather medicine for her grandson in Mississippi. This short story takes places in December on a “bright frozen day” where an old Negro woman arises by the name of Phoenix Jackson. I believe she signifies a struggle, but when looking at her a bit deeper, she mostly signifies willpower (Welty, 502). As she goes towards the town on the path, she appears to have walked numerous times before; she has to overcome many problems. What’s important is that with each move she takes it looks to be pretty sluggish, but yet a steady move in the direction of her goal. The story gives an understanding to the determination and confidence of Phoenix Jackson to point out the belief of people in identical lives of endless struggle. In “A Worn Path,” Eudora Welty reveals the idea that sometimes our lives can be a lot like an obstacles course, which are made up of difficulties that we have to overcome somehow.
The title itself, “A Worn Path,” referred to life as the journey itself through a worn path. Obstacles that Phoenix Jackson faced shows the real-life hardships, lies, and aggressions, that minorities face. Despite its simplicity, Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” does show us some of the greatest of life’s reality.
In the modern short story, Eudora Welty clearly develops Phoenix Jackson as a main character who indirectly manipulates other people. Phoenix, as the speaker in “A Worn Path” holds the status of an old Negro woman who continues the everyday cycle of life. Although, in reality Phoenix is an average human being, who feels she must be rewarded for living. Phoenix believes that humanity owes her something for the troubles she encounters throughout her lifetime. When Phoenix says to the hunter, “that’s as far as I walk when I come out myself, and I get something for my trouble” (paragraph 46). Incidentally, Phoenix replies to the old hunter’s question it is quite clear that she undoubtedly is expecting compensation; whether it is a pity party or a monetary gift to settle the score. Because Phoenix feels like she must abuse other people, she appears to have the power to be in control of any situation that might come her way. Throughout Welty’s “A Worn Path,” Phoenix Jackson and her actions symbolize her to be a selfish and manipulative woman.
When Phoenix is walking early in the morning she is amongst the pine trees that seems to engulf her, she shows her determination as she lumbers along the trail. With the motion in her step going from side to side in a manner that would sagest the pace that she is keeping, although is a slow in general, may be a little quicker then she would normally be maintaining. This would be so that she could return before the sun goes down with the medicine for her little grandson. She knows this trail very well and walks with confidence, persistently taping the ground with her cane, possible not even looking at where it is her feet are landing. Upon the way she stops to scold and warn the foxes, and other small animals she was visualizing to stay out of her way that she had a far walk and that she must be getting on her way. She says this with a tone in her voice which I imagine to be a voice that a older women uses when they mean business and must finish what they set out to do. Phoenix waves her cane much like someone would at a horse, to persuade it to continue on the path.
Welty tells the story with “some dreams and harassments and a small triumph or two, some jolts to [Phoenix’s] pride, some flights of fancy to console her, one or two encounters to scare her, a moment that gave her cause to be ashamed, a moment to dance and preen…” (quoted in Moberly, 109). The early harassments evoke symbols of slavery such as coming through the “dark pine shadows” in slave garb, “dark striped dress…an equally long apron of bleached sugar sacks…all neat and tidy” (Roberts, 95). The “chains about my feet” and the uphill climb is descriptive of literally being a slave in chains. Being caught in the “pretty green bush” (Rogers, 96) that turns out to be a thorn bush is a figurative hard worn path to equal rights, with unseen snags and pitfalls. “Purple stalks” (Rogers, 96) and the buzzard and through the “old cotton” (Rogers, 96) represents the mourning of the African American people,...
It’s December when Phoenix starts on her journey to Natchez and it is a journey she has taken many times before. This journey is no journey an elderly and weaken person should have to make by themselves, yet Phoenix does. She does not allow her age or her condition to keep her from it. Deep through the pines, the path takes her, and her first task would be to make it over a hill that seems to take all her energy and strength. “Seems like there is chains around my feet, time I get this far…” (Welty 5), here the reader can tell Phoenix does not have the strength that she really needs to make it up the hill. Yet somewhere she finds the will to keep pushing on and moving forward. This same type of spirit that allows Phoenix to keep pushing forward in society, and not to back down. Showing the younger generation that you have to fight your way through to a brighter day. It is later down the path that Phoenix comes to a creek and the only way to get across, is by walking on a log. Phoenix walks across this log with her eyes close. Once across she opens her eyes and says, “I wasn’t as old as I ...
Upon a first reading of Eudora Welty’s, “A Worn Path”, it appears to be a simple story about an old woman going into town to procure medicine for her sick grandson, who has swallowed lye (Welty 3). After further readings and doing research, the deep meaning and depth of the story becomes apparent. The worn path is much more than a routine route regularly traversed into town and back to home. The protagonist Phoenix Jackson has many more layers than the way she is perceived as an apparent no account drifter, charity case, whose only reason to head into town is to see Santa Clause (Welty 2). There is significant meaning behind the interactions with people, places, and objects that Phoenix crosses paths with on her journey into town. Every interaction and situation presents Phoenix with the opportunity to learn and grow as a person and as a culture. The sick grandson represents more than a sick boy at home waiting for medicine to heal his physical ailment (Welty 3). Welty uses a myriad of symbols to tell the story of the long and arduous journey blacks take going from slavery to free Americans. A journey that takes lifetimes of accumulating knowledge, gaining wisdom, and then passing everything learned to the children. The next generation builds on to, and hones the gained wisdom and further refines the knowledge as they pass it on to the next generation. It is the gained wisdom that is constantly reborn like the Phoenix in mythology (Mercantante 527). In, “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty, Phoenix Jackson symbolizes the past and present population of black Americans and the worn path represents her experiences and the wisdom she has gained, soon to be reincarnated in her grandson, the future generation of black America.
Black people held a very bitter perspective of the white people that lived in Medallion because of the way the white people treated them. From the very beginning of the story where the slave got the land from his master, the master had tricked the slave into picking the top of the hill because the farming conditions were worse. Over t...
Phoenix's precarious journey may seem dangerous, but her determination is what carries her through the obstacles she faces as she makes her way through the woods. Phoenix makes her way across the worn path and discovers many active opponents. She continues forward over barriers that would not even be considered a hindrance for the young. The long hill that she takes tires her, the thornbrush attempts to catch her clothes, the log that Phoenix goes across endangers her balance as she walks across it, and the barbed-wire fence threatens to puncture her skin. All of these impediments that Phoenix endures apparently do not affect her because she is determined that nothing will stop her on her journey. She keeps proceeding onward letting nothing deter her determination. ?The hunter(tm)s attempt to instill fear in Phoenix, a fear she disposed of years ago as she came to terms with her plight in society, fail (Sykes 151). She ?realizes that the importance of the trip far exceeds the possible harm that can be done to her brittle ...
22). The imagery of the clock gives a visual image of Phoenix unsteady walk and partial reasons why she carries a cane. After reading the first two paragraphs of A Worn Path one might wonder why is an elderly woman in such conditions out in the cold. Not until further along in the story does the author go into depth of the character’s reasoning for traveling out in the cold. In spite of Phoenix’s condition and old age you see her determination in paragraph three. In paragraph three she demands any obstacles or troubles that may try to come along her path to move out of her way because she has a long ways to go. The story goes into description of the pathway the woman is following; along the way she may have had little hope or faith until, “Down in the hollow was the mourning dove-it was not to late for him.” (Weltz, 1941, p. 22). Doves have many significant symbols and in paragraph four the dove symbolized hope for Phoenix. This symbol may have encouraged the woman that she still has time. We also learn in this paragraph that the reason Phoenix is traveling this pathway is to help someone she cares
In “This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona,” Alexie creates a story that captures the common stereotypes of Native Americans. For instance, in the story the narrator states, “Who does have money on a reservation, except the cigarette and fireworks salespeople?” (Alexie). This quotation shows that the narrator addresses the idea that all Native Americans must own businesses that sell fireworks and/ or cigarettes in order to be successful. In this example, Victor is shown to not identify with the Native Americans because he does not pursue the same job opportunities as many Native Americans do. Victor's character is used as a contrast to the stereotypes that , there he represents reality. Another instance in which the author incorporates a stereotype about Native Americans is when Thomas-Builds-the-Fire first makes conversation with Victor. Thomas-Builds-the-Fire informs Victor about the news of Victor's ...
“A Worn Path” told the story of an old woman named Phoenix Jackson. She had to make a long, adventurous journey to town in order to receive medicine for her grandson who had fallen ill. Phoenix Jackson was determined to reach her destination, and she did not let anything stand in her way. Throughout her voyage, she displayed characteristics of being brave, unselfish, and senile.
Although I feel as though there are many literary elements throughout this short story such as characterization and theme, I also feel as though symbolism is very important as well. First of all, I believe that the name Phoenix in itself is symbolic for the type of person the old woman truly is. A Phoenix is a mythological creature who dies in fire and rises from ashes only to be stronger. It is as though all of these hardships only make the old woman more determined to complete her journey successfully.