Everyday Use by Alice Walker and Eudora Welty in A Worn Path are two short stories that share many similarities. One similarity between the two stories that caught my attention was protection and love. Both women take care of a child that went through an incident. In the story Everyday Use by Alice Walker, Mama is a poor African American woman who is considered to be very strong and manly.
Have you ever been through an experience that impacted you so much it left you speechless and verbose at the same time? Have you been through an experience so memorable that you exaggerate the experience when you try to recall it? If your answer to the following questions are a definite yes, then you have a lot in common with author Eudora Welty. Welty has been through a lot of significant events in her childhood that she still recognizes to this day. In a passage from her autobiography “One Writer’s Beginnings,” Eudora Welty uses descriptive and figurative language such as pathos, to convey the intensity and value of her experiences as a young girl.
Eudora Welty’s life was impacted by books. At the age of nine Welty’s mom got her a library card, and said she could read any book child or adult, except one. Welty always checked out the maximum number of books, and rushed home to read them and quickly get more books. Welty’s language conveys the intensity and value of these experiences, because she is well-spoken and description about her early experiences of reading books. Welty is an exquisite writer when it come to her syntax and spelling.
Blurred Reality In “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty, the main protagonist, Phoenix Jackson, experiences a series of obstacles along her journey to get a needed medication for her grandson, being held back by delusions, and the restrictions of nature. The author uses an abundance of symbolism to create an emblematic explanation for the occurrences experienced by Phoenix on her trek to town. While on her way to town, she experiences hallucinations and rough paths, causing her to be temporarily set back. Her past, which is hinted as the past of a slave, creates a safety harness of delusions causing a division between two realities: One that is average and realistic, and the other that is imaginary and almost childlike.
During his 1950 Nobel Prize Banquet Speech, William Faulkner expresses his concept of the “writer’s duty,” saying it is “his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart.” In her essay, “The Chase,” Annie Dillard illustrates this concept by expressing her enthusiasm for life through the perspective of her younger self. She narrates her experience being chased by a man after she and her friends throw snowballs at his car. When she is eventually caught, Dillard is upset that it is over, as it was the ultimate test of the skills she had acquired in football. Dillard accomplishes the “writer’s duty” because she lifts our hearts with a story that is meaningful, purposeful, and effective.
Literary Analysis: “A Worn Path” Eudora Welty uses many literary elements in her short story, “A Worn Path,” to allow the reader to stay engaged throughout its entirety. Although there are many literary elements present in this story, there are three that Welty focuses intently on. She uses elements such as imagery, symbolism, and motifs to draw the reader’s attention. It is important for an author to write their story in a way that can be understood but also enjoyed. In “A Worn Path”, Welty focuses in on the elements, such as, symbolism, motifs, and imagery and writes a story that has great meaning and can be discovered by the reader when looked at carefully.
While living in America, a land of freedom, it didn't change the fact that the whites are more superior. The story “A Worn Path” starts in the 1940s, where blacks are treated differently as if they are not on the same level of whites. It was shown in the story explaining Phenix’s difficult journey to town. Although blacks are treated differently, phenix kept moving forward even when she had difficulty because phenix was determined to go to town and get the medicine for her grandson.
In Eudora Welty’s autobiography “One Writer’s Beginnings,” Welty uses language to convey the intensity and value of these experiences to describe her passion for reading in shaping her future as a writer. She describes Mrs. Calloway as the inconsiderate antagonist, her
The inspiration for Eudora Welty’s character Phoenix Jackson came from an “ancient black woman whom [Welty] saw walking across the countryside… near the Natchez Trace…” (Barnhisel 11). Welty wrote “A Worn Path” as soon as she got home that day; she felt that the woman she met was on “a purposeful, measured journey…” (Barnhisel 11). She grew up in Jackson, Mississippi.
One would think that the most passionate writers were constantly surrounded by massive piles of books. That's the only way to get them passionate about reading. However this Eudora Welty was not one of these writers. In One Writer’s Beginnings Eudora Welty through the use of frantic imagery, intimidating connotative diction, and apposition is able to effectively portray her purpose of writing, that being the influence literature has made on her life. Welty utilizes frantic imagery that effectively demonstrates the excitement she had as a child for reading.
Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” tells the story of an unlikely hero. The first thing that comes to mind when considering a heroic character is someone who faces great danger or adversity. This hero or heroine will accomplish amazing feats, go on extraordinary journeys and display exceptional bravery. These characteristics usually follow a certain image as well; a heroic figure is usually a knight in shining armor, a vigilante in a mask or someone with supernatural abilities. However, Welty’s character Phoenix breaks the stereotypical hero image, while still displaying all the characteristics of a true hero.
Over the next two years, six of her stories were published in the southern Review, a serious literary magazine one of whose editors was the poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren. She also received strong support from Katherine Anne Porter, who contributed an introduction to Welty’s first book of stories, A Curtain of Green (1941). That introduction hailed the arrival of another gifted southern fiction writer, and in fact the volume contained some of the best stories she was ever to write, such as Petrified man. Her profusion of metaphor and the difficult surface of her narrative-often oblique and indirect in its effect-were in part a mark of her admiration for modern writers like Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner. Although Welty’s stories were as shapely as her mentor’s, Porter, they were more richly idiomatic and comic in their inclination.
The scene then changes to the narrator’s childhood, a lonely one at it. “I lay on the bed and lost myself in stories,” he says, “I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyway.” The main narrative starts as he recalls a
It was a tiring morning, I rubbed the weariness out of my eyes as I stumbled in to Mrs.Gilky's art room, I immediately sat in my seat awaiting further instructions. Mrs.Gilky walked to the front of the room. "Alright, today we will begin the first steps of sculpting our ducks, I will call you up in alphabetical order to get your clay. starting with Nolan." Mrs.Gilky finished.
The authors want their audiences to use these tales and examples as life lessons and hope for them to utilize these sources in their future lives. These two ideas are presented through the use of figurative language, mainly metaphors. In addition, the similar tone of these pieces allows the author to connect more deeply with the readers. Toni Morrison’s Nobel lecture, folktales, and several poems illustrate how metaphors and tone are used to describe experience and caution the readers.
