In The passage “A Worn Path” Eudora Welty shows that a simple journey can be seen as heroic and courageous through the eyes of others. Phoenix is frequently shown sacrificing herself for her grandsons needs, illustrating her compassion and bravery as a hero. “ Doesn't the gun scare you... No sir, I seen plenty so off closer by.” This quote indicates how much love and compassion she has towards her grandson, she’s willing to risk her life just so her grandson can get the medication he needs. For some people her journey would be seen as a very simple, but for phoenix she’s very old and not able to do the things she used to do. Phoenix is trying to get the medication for her grandson and is willing to take risk to get her grandsons medicine.
On this December day she is walking down a long and enduring Natchez Trace to perform a heroic quest. On the path it goes into great detail about all the things she sees such as water, animals, cabins, plants, and dangerous places. This gives us the sense that she is familiar with taking this journey linking us to Phoenix and the history behind the path. The appearance that Phoenix Johnson has is very important to the story.
Whether Phoenix makes the journey because of the trauma causing her to relive experience, or because she is in denial, or if she does it to honor him, it does not change the fact that Phoenix persevered in order to reach the goal of acquiring the medicine. Phoenix makes it to her destination despite having to walk through a dead and dangerous land in order to keep the memory of her grandson alive because she is a strong and courageous women with a deep love for her grandson that was not altered simply because he is gone from the physical
Also like Everyday Use, A Worn Path takes place at a time in the 1900s when racism existed. Just like Mama, Phoenix also takes care and protects a child. However, the child she takes care of is her grandson. Many years ago, her grandson swallowed lye. This is a strong substance which is used in making soap.
Both of these feminine characters are very notable in the way they are defined and presented. Phoenix in A Worn Path is remarkable for her willpower in overcoming each hurdle she faces to get medicine for her grandson, and is described as being a small, old woman, but one who has a great inner power apart from her age and size, “Her eyes were blue with age. Her skin had a pattern all its own of numberless branching wrinkles and as though a whole little tree stood in the middle of her
Phoenix faces many challenges on her journey to get medicine. She faces discrimination against her color, age, metal disease, and poverty. At the time in history discrimination against
In the short story Welty’s want the reader to be comfortable with Phoenix as a character. Welty describes Phoenix wearing a long dress reaching her shoe top and a long apron of bleached sugar sacks. When Phoenix talks aloud to herself the author wants the reader to imagine an old woman with characteristics of a warm, comical, young spirited woman side of her. The short story also uses images which evoke from the biblical imagery. Phoenix’s uses biblical connection to show the reader how important her story and the
Many people look at life as a path and that is exactly what Welty used that to represent Phoenix Jackson’s life. Phoenix was faced with various obstacles on her journey. Her dress is caught on a thorn bush, she must cross a creek where a log has fallen, crawl under barbed-wire, and maneuver though cotton and old corn fields (Welty 264-265). While these are obstacles that are dependent on the setting it is also a figurative meaning for the lives of African Americans during the period in American history. When Phoenix falls in the whole and the hunter comes along and helps her out it allows the reader to see a snip it of what it was like for a white male and black female to interact with each other.
Welty creates a story that contrasts the cruelties and injustices of human nature with the balance and order of nonhuman nature. Readers are left to wonder what kind of medicine can provide healing to the world Phoenix journeys through. (Claxton, Mae Miller 74) Once you conquer one quest another one comes in line to make you be a better you, as for Phoenix she decides to buy her grandson a windmill showing love towards her grandson allowing a new journey to
Loving Others Love can significantly impact people’s actions, helping them persevere through hardships to continue communicating with their loved ones. In “A Worn Path,” by Eudora Welty, Phoenix Jackson makes regular trips to the town of Natchez to get medicine for her beloved grandson who swallowed lye. During one of her trips, she encounters many obstacles, including her cataracts and age, a thorny bush, a log laid across a creek, and a racist hunter, though she is able to reach the town regardless of all of them. Once she is there, she purchases the medicine, and with money that she steals and begs for, she also buys a paper windmill for her grandson. Phoenix uses love as a reason to persevere in uncomfortable situations for her grandson,
In A Worn Path, Phoenix uses her race and age to manipulate others to get their money. With the hunter, Phoenix tricks him into doing something else so she could steal the nickel that fell from his pocket. Then, she is able to get the attendant to give her more money she intended too. Phoenix also shows how she will stop at nothing to help her loved one and will put herself in potential danger for him. Because of that, it shows how Phoenix is persistent and cares more for her grandson than herself.
Jackson is willing to go through these conflicts in order to get to Natchez and achieve her goal. In conclusion, Eudora Welty did a good job showing the sacrificial love of a grandmother in A Worn Path. She gave her protagonist a name that symbolizes death and rebirth, and she also created difficult conflicts that accurately shows the endless parameters of Phoenix Jackson’s sacrificial love. It is our job to show this kind of sacrificial love toward others.
Pheonix Jackson’s grandson is dead because she shows signs of dementia, she hesitates when asked about how the boy is doing, and she says words that imply the boy isn’t changing. The story “ A Worn Path” follows the difficult trip routinely made by Pheonix on foot to a nearby town for her grandson’s medicine which he needs for his swollen throat. Pheonix shows signs of dementia which would affect her perception of reality and her grandson being alive or dead. In the line, “At first she took it as a man,” referring to her encountering a scarecrow, Pheonix shows that her senses are inadequate enough to believe a scarecrow is a man dancing in a field (762). Pheonix is more reliant on her body remembering the trail than her sense of sight
She exemplifies Christ along her journey when she stops under a mistletoe tree; the same type of tree in which the cross was made. The thorns she encounters also relate to Christ’s death on the cross, the crown of thorns he wears on his head. The journey she takes to get her grandson’s medicine, is considered to be an example of self-sacrifice. Phoenix gives others the opportunity to help her and accomplish good things. One example is when the hunter helps her out of the ditch.
There are many different types of poems that exist on devices and books. Many are happy, sad, dark, funny, etc. The purpose of these poems are to make people feel a certain way or to just relate to how they are feeling. The poem “Traveling through the Dark,” by William Stafford, alters people’s emotions by making them feel sad by the darkness of the poem. The author’s background influenced the poem, “Traveling through the Dark” and its motif of sadness.
In the story “A Worn Path” Phoenix Jackson was an old African American women. She takes a small journey that can be an allegory of someone's whole life. The journey had hard and easy parts, beauty, danger, and confusion. But her quest was to get the medicine for her sick grandson who laid at home waiting for her return. Phoenix was a delusional yet heroic, caring grandmother who would stop at nothing to get what she needed.