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Resilience In Eudora Welty's A Worn Path

784 Words4 Pages

A true representation of resilience is the phoenix, a mythological bird that burned itself after several centuries of life only to rise from smoldering ashes to repeat the process (Tabachnick, 2015). Ironically, Eudora Welty used the name Phoenix for the main character of her story “A Worn Path”, and aptly so. In the story, the symbolism between the character Phoenix and the mythological creature is revealed through her perseverance and unwavering toughness when faced with difficulties along her journey. Throughout the story, Phoenix, in her ageing, feeble state, faces several obstacles that threaten to turn her from her mission. However, Phoenix refuses to stop, continuing her trip despite the danger she faces only to rise and continue after each obstacle. Likewise, the reader discovers that Phoenix has made the trip before each time starting over anew just as the mythological bird. Such symbolism along with each obstacle she overcomes serves to create the theme of the story. …show more content…

As she continues her journey she faces the first of many obstacles that would threaten her mission. The path she is following, and has followed so many times before, takes her up a hill. No doubt, such an obstacle would give pause to anyone in her condition and she expresses this when she says to herself, “Seem like there is chains about my feet, time I get this far…Something always take a hold of me on this hill – pleads I should stay” (Kirszner and Mandell, 2012, p. 388). Nevertheless, Phoenix continues her journey making it to the top of the hill and descends the other side forging on determined to complete her mission. She could have turned back at any time, but she rose up in defiance of the hill just as she had so many times

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Obstacles In The Journey By Eudora Welty

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The Journey Phoenix Jackson was an elderly uneducated black women. Her mission was to set out to town to get medicine for her sick grandson. She knew when she left she would have many obstacles to go thru before she reached town. Her determination to help her sick grandchild was more important to her than anything she may encounter on her journey. Eudora Welty puts a lot of obstacles in front of Phoenix as she goes on her journey to town some of those being a hill that talks to her and pleads for her to stay and look around and then she sees a boy with marble cake and telling her that would be acceptance and when she went to accept the cake nothing was there.

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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

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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.

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Given her grandson’s injuries that hope is as fragile as the paper windmill. This reminds us that hope is fragile, and is contingent on historical and civil efforts beyond Phoenix and her grandson.     Phoenix Jackson perseveres to achieve a purposeful goal. Phoenix Jackson stayed true to her faith in times of desperation. Against the obstacles, she was willing to reach her destination to provide her grandson with the medicine he is in need of.

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Obstacles In Eudora Welty's A Worn Path

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Yes, the journey is a great risk especially in her condition but Eudora shows how Phoenix’s spirit causes her to persevere in the face of adversity. In the end, Phoenix Jackson reached her destination and received the medicine for her grandchild. What starts out as a long quest filled with dangerous obstacles ends in a meaningful lesson for the readers’. Eudora Welty short story, “A Worn Path,” exemplifies what it means to persevere through any tribulations that stand in the way of your goals.

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The first obstacle Phoenix Jackson had to deal with was the hill which make her feet feel as if they were chained to one another and the hill would issue pleas for her to just stay. Moreover, Phoenix Jackson would not be deterred so quick and accomplishes the feat and turns to relish the first obstacle, but quickly realizes that every step down the hill will be just as treacherous as the ascent. Phoenix gets caught in some thorny bushes upon her decent but was able to free her without ripping her dress. After crossing the creek Phoenix Jackson is approached by obviously a familiar boy who offers her a piece of cake and when she goes to accept it she awakes from the day dream.

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Eudora Welty highlights Phoenix as an existence who relives the identical moment of satisfaction as she portrays Phoenix “moving a little from side to side in her steps, with the balanced heaviness and lightness of a pendulum in a grand-father clock” (Welty). The grandfather clock’s pendulum represents the reoccurring motion of time. Despite swinging to the opposite

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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.

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A Worn Path Theme Essay

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Jackson is an old and poor grandmother whose senses are beginning to fail her, but she goes through seemingly unbearable trials in order to get to town and pick up her grandson’s medicine that will keep him alive. In this heartwarming story, Welty uses symbolism and various conflicts to create the theme of sacrificial love. In A Worn Path, Welty uses symbolism to illustrate her theme by giving the protagonist the name Phoenix. A phoenix is often used as a symbol of death and resurrection from the ashes ("Ancient Symbolism of

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