Allusions In A Worn Path

“A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty is a story about an old woman who goes above and beyond for her grandson. Phoenix makes an annual trip to get medicine so that her sickly grandson can stay alive. This journey may have more meaning to it than meets the eye. There are many things in this short story that deserves a second look and more thought. Phoenix Jackson is a bird like spirit, who keeps herself alive, and keeps herself sane all while saving her grandson. First, in the short story, A Worn Path, the woman’s name is Phoenix Jackson which is an allusion of the mythological bird. The phoenix is a mythological bird that burns itself up and then rises from its on ashes. As Phoenix Jackson takes the trip through the woods to get her grandson’s medicine the journey kills her every time. “She is very old and small and she walked slowly in the dark pine shadows…” (Welty 464). The journey is a very difficult path to travel and Phoenix is in her late ages, but she rises from the ashes and makes the trip multiple times. Secondly, looking from a different perspective, Phoenix Jackson makes that annual trip not to kill herself but to keep herself alive. Every year she makes this trip for her grandson who could possibly be dead. She does this to cope with the loss of her entire family and being alone for miles in every direction around her. “The journey

This may be an allusion of Phoenix “achieving her destination” (Bartel 289) in life. Now that Phoenix has made then trip she has been taking to stay alive, now she can die. Phoenix imagines a boy offering her cake, “and when a little boy brought her a plate with a marble-cake on it she spoke to him” (Welty 465). This boy could quite possibly be her grandson and by her having this vision it shows how much she imagines and her “desperate need for companionship” (Bartel 290). This shows that she could very easily be imaging that her grandson is alive when he is