This serves as an example of how a lack of familial ties can prevent an individual from overcoming intergenerational trauma. The relationship between Phoenix and her mother Elsie is portrayed as distant and estranged. This is exemplified in a scene where Phoenix is going to prison and Elsie attempts to reach out to her, but she rejects the gesture by moving away and refusing to touch her mother. Phoenix also expressed disdain for her mother's weakness, “she does not want to look at her, does not want to see Elsie groveling in her Elsie way, being weak. She does not want to feel sorry for her, or feel anything for her” (Vermette 323).
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.
The main character, the principal character, the protagonist, all the same person whose name is otherwise known as Toby. Throughout The Trail, you will learn a lot about Toby, and get a deeper understanding for what it is he is going through. This is because the author, Meika Hashimoto, does a great job portraying Toby as the character he really is through his actions and character traits. One example of these character traits is him being extremely pessimistic, which is basically seeing the worst in everything, or believing that the worst is almost always going to happen. As expressed in the book, “Like a total moron, I literally exited my campsite and started walking back in the direction I’d come from .
Esperanza, do you remember the story of the phoenix, the lovely younger bird that is re-born from its own ashes?’ Esperanza nodded. Abuelita had read it to her many times from a book of myths. ‘We are like the phoenix,’ said Abuelita. ‘Rising again, with a new life ahead of us.’”
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 Eudora Welty's short story "A Worn Path," an elderly black woman named Phoenix Jackson treks through the hilly backcountry to receive medication for her ill grandson at the clinic in town. Despite facing incapacitating conflicts, Jackson is unrelenting and perseveres the arduous journey for her grandson’s sake, as she has many times before. Jackson's fiercely devoted and determined character is exposed as she faces the struggles of debilitating poverty, advanced age, and the rugged physical environment. The severity of Phoenix Jackson's jarring poverty is blatantly evident. She has to walk to town instead of using a car.
Even though Phoenix nearly forgot why she traveled her grandson is always the reason she continues to
Oakes College is a place where diversity and individualism can thrive. The principles that Oakes College stands for are represented in its theme: Communicating Diversity in a Just Society. Throughout the Oakes Core Course the students have been taught how they can be effective members of society. Octavia E. Butler’s novel, Parable of the Sower, displays the themes of diversity and justice all throughout while tackling the many issues that stem from them. Butler depicts how difference is needed in a society for it to thrive.
When Phoenix sat down to rest she imagined a little boy bringing her a piece of marble cake and went to take it but there was nothing except her own hand in the air. Phoenix can also be declared delusional as she believes her grandson is still alive while most evidence states otherwise. The nurse at the doctor’s says some convincing things such as “ The doctor said as long as you came to get it, you could have it” and “ It’s an obstinate case” and asked if he was dead. The tone the nurse uses when asking these questions or making these comments is almost as if she’s waiting for Phoenix to accept the death of her grandson once and for
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
The nurses in the doctor’s office are an example of how poorly people treat Phoenix because of her appearance. They both refer to Phoenix as a charity case. The narrator states “A charity case, I suppose,’ said an attendant who sat at the desk before her. […] ‘Oh, that’s just old Aunt Phoenix,’ […]” (6). The women both display an arrogant attitude towards Phoenix because they see her as nothing more than a helpless, little old lady, who needs charity handouts: “All right.’
Some references even suggest Phoenix may have once been a slave; such as the chains the old woman feels on her feet as she climbs the path uphill. Racial inequality is unmistakably clear when the old woman falls in the ditch and is confronted by the white hunter. One would believe the hunter calling Phoenix Granny to be a harmless reference to her age; however, Granny is a term coined by southern whites in the thirties and forties and refers to a single elderly black woman: a granny is an old black woman who takes care of the white
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.
It's gone. Oh no. Ma will be incensed with me. It's so hard to obtain classic literature these days. What if she decides to cancel my freedom?
