Since she cannot read, she needs to rely on her memory. Entering it, she climbs the towering staircase, reaching the doctor’s office. Phoenix continues walking on, until she finally reaches a big building. Stopping a woman coming towards her, arms laden with gifts, Phoenix asks whether the kind lady would tie her shoe laces for her, since she is too old to do it herself. The town is alive with the spirit of Christmas. She can see the steeple, the cabins, the children running around, people bustling about. When she sees a nickel fall out of the hunter’s pocket, she diverts his attention and picks it up, believing that God is watching her steal. They exchange brief words, and he thinks she is going into town to see Santa Claus. Soon, a hunter comes along and pulls her out. There again, she sees someone reach out to her, but when she extends her hand, there’s nothing. ✦ She is nearly attacked by a dog down the road, and in an attempt to hit him with her cane, she falls backward into a ditch. On finding out its true identity, she happily does a little dance with it! Then she comes across a field, where she has an encounter with a scarecrow, who she first mistakes for a ghost. She crawls through it carefully, so as not to get injured. ✦ She begins walking again and approaches a barbed wire fence. When she is resting, a little boy approaches her with a piece of cake, but when she reaches for it, there’s no one there, a sign that she is perhaps hallucinating. On crossing safely, she says, “I wasn’t as old as I thought.” However, she sits down to rest. She crosses it with her eyes closed, glad that she relies more on her feet than her failing eyesight to guide her. ✦ Walking on, she soon encounters a creek with log laid across. By this time, she realizes that afternoon has already arrived.
#A worn path eudora welty analysis free#
Along the way, her dress gets caught in a thorn bush, and she has to struggle to free herself. Keep out from under these feet, little bob-whites… Keep the big wild hogs out of my path.” She goes up a steep hill through a forest of pine trees, and then down again through oaks. For instance, she makes her weariness about wild animals evident when she says, “Out of my way, all you foxes, owls, beetles, jack rabbits, coons and wild animals!. ✦ She maintains a monologue with herself the entire way, and also talks to the nature. She is going to Natchez to bring back medicine for her grandson, who is suffering for years because of swallowing lye. The title of the story seems to have been taken from the fact that she has made this journey numerous times, and the path is now worn to her. ✦ Phoenix Jackson is a very old African-American woman who is making a journey to Natchez, through a perilous road. The following paragraphs provide a summary and brief analysis of the story, and also a character analysis of the various people that we come across in it. We are left wondering about the reason for her journey right till the end, and that makes it all the more moving. The writer does not provide any information about the kind of person Phoenix is, except for her physical appearance. It is otherwise left to the reader to interpret Phoenix’s character.
The story has been written in first person, with the author only narrating the incidents that happen on that day. The story is made enjoyable by the light humor that the author maintains in the form of a monologue the old woman keeps up with herself. However, she is not deterred and makes it to her destination. The main character of the story is Phoenix Jackson, an elderly woman who makes a very perilous journey to the city of Natchez, encountering many dangers along the way. An allegorical story that depicts differential treatment, and a love that knows no boundaries, it is truly touching. Phoenix Jackson’s story is very similar to the women she came across at the time.Ī Worn Path is a book set in 1940s’ America, where black Americans were still treated differently from white Americans. During that time, she captured many moments of the rural life of black Americans on her camera. Before writing ‘The Worn Path’, Eudora Welty was a publicity agent for Works Progress Administration in the ’30s.